A World of Full of Color
by joecarioca
Summary: What starts out as a fun birthday gift turns into an accident that results in a temporary roommate and some possible, permanent disaster. Now completed with notes from the author.
1. New York, New York

This idea would not unlatch itself from my mind until it was fully realized into this story. So my apologies that you've also unwittingly come along for the ride. Unless you find yourself enjoying it! In which that case, thank you for your patronage.

"Brake! Brake!"

"This has brakes?!"

"Duck!"

The young boy ducked down, only to have his companion, his father, reach over to swerve the red machine out of the way of a family of ducks. Feathers went flying as the birds fluttered out of the way and they skimmed the top of the Central Park late at nighttime.

The WABAC skidded and groaned out of the park and into the busy street. Sherman's early birthday present, to take a few driving lessons in the machine, now resulted in a shower of sparks as it skated over the concrete, cars honking their horns and swerving out of the way of the red globe.

"This is going be terrible on the insurance…" Peabody muttered, having leaned over to take control of the time machine. It'd been hard enough to even find someone to insure the thing… Now with this… He cringed at the thought.

"What was that, Mr. Peabody?"

"Oh, nothing, nothing Sherman! Just wondering if we'll still make those dinner reservations still! It will take some time to arrive in 1953, after all."

"I think I remember a quick way, Mr. Peabody!" Sherman gasped, veering the WABAC a sharp right. A sharp right into a building, resulting in a very round hole.

"That… Wasn't it…" the boy murmured, sitting back up in his chair and adjusting the glasses that had fallen off of his face.

"Ohhhh, dear…." Mr. Peabody was the first one to climb out to look at the damage—The WABAC itself was still in good enough shape, in spite of a few scratches and dents that could be repaired easily. The residence, however, hadn't been so lucky.

Drywall and wires hung down from the ceiling. Paintings had all toppled to the ground or had been crushed. The same went with dozens of statues and pieces of pottery.

A voice in the back of Peabody's head reminded him as he stood amongst the destruction—Don't yell. No matter how much the artwork was worth… Don't yell. Keep. Focused.

They were alerted to, along with the sirens in the distance from the oncoming police officers, the sound of the door of the apartment creaking open, followed by too-loud music blaring from a pair of headphones, and an off-key harmony joining along in the form of dreadful singing.

Then there was the sound of keys dropping and the singing suddenly coming to a halt.

The owner had returned home, it was clear.

"That's really nice of you not to be mad!" Sherman as he stood in the refuse of the apartment along with Mr. Peabody, several police officers, and the owner. Aside from a reckless driving charge, they had gotten off fairly easily, much to Peabody's relief. He took the ticket and sighed outwardly, rubbing his forehead

"Well, the good news is I own the building as a studio," the owner sighed, looking about. "So no landlord to really contend with…"

"How convenient…" Peabody murmured.

The owner had kept the same grin. The owner was a bit smaller than either of them, dressed in a green sweater and with a messenger bag still slung over one of their shoulders. And there was also the fact the was a cat. Maine coon, Peabody had told Sherman. Black and white, with bright green eyes, almost mint-colored. A black tail with a white tip moved back and forth slowly while making conversation, always with the Cheshire grin.

"You know… I couldn't help but notice the water damage on the wood floors…" Peabody mentioned off-handedly after the cops moved away, surveying the damage. "And the copper wiring's all out of code. It'd be very nice for insurance to cover it…"

"Probably good that it's the people from the claims office who decides it then, huh? …"

"Oh, no, not at all…" Peabody glanced up towards the ceiling. "Are those wooden beams? They look a bit old. This is a turn of the century building, from what I can see."

"So where are you gonna be staying Mr…"

"Rigby," the cat answered with a tilt of the head. "Just Rigby. No title needed."

"The artist?" Peabody turned, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah… Although I think I'm going to be going on hiatus after all of this…."

"Hrm. Well, we'll be sure to sort out the damage we caused."

"Hey, you paint just like Mr. Pollock!" Sherman noted, glancing down at what remained of a painting at his feet.

"What sort of a kid knows about Pollock?" Rigby asked, having overcome the surprise out of the left field compliment. "And what's this thing you guys drove in here, anyway? It looks Swedish."

"Why wouldn't I know about him?" the boy returned with a laugh.

"Well… I tried to go more the Louis Wain route for a while, but everyone thought I was just being full of myself…" Rigby murmured.

"M—Erm, Rigby. Here is our information—We'll be certain to be in touch with you," said Peabody, ripping off a sheet of paper from a notepad. "Let us be off, Sherman."

It was when they were walking back to the WABAC they heard the bellow of, "What do you mean 'condemned'?!" come from Rigby, who was balking at the police officers standing over to the side. "Where am I supposed to go, this late at night?! I don't have any family here!"

Sherman looked to Peabody. Peabody looked to Sherman. Sherman's eyes were pleading.

"…You should know very well that puppy boy eyes don't work as well on me, Sherman…" said the dog. "Sherman… No. Sherman. Absolutely not."

But he wasn't totally immune, it turned out. Within the hour there was a backpack lying on the floor of the WABAC, and a cat sitting in between the two, allowing for an already larger ego to be sated by the young boy seated to the left.

"I think it had to be the brushwork," Sherman's legs swung back and forth against his seat, and Rigby took this in, having leaned forward to listen.

"How does a kid know so much about painters like that, anyway?"

"Mr. Peabody told me all about Mr. Pollock!" Sherman was quick to keep himself from telling the total truth—The fact that they'd spent an afternoon lunching with Mr. Pollock, once long ago, followed by a talk about baseball.

"Peabody… I think I know that name from somewhere…"

Mr. Peabody began, "Well, if you were ever a Knicks fan, you would know for certain that the defensive guard three years ago—"

"Oh! Did you happen to work at the diner off of 150th and North Conduit?!" Rigby asked with a snap of the fingers.

"No. No I did not," Mr. Peabody answered sharply, lowering the altitude down to the front doors of the tower. "Sherman, I'll meet you upstairs. Please see that our guest is comfortable."

"This place… It's huge!" Rigby muttered, raising up on tiptoes to try to see the very top. "I must have been away while they finished building it…"

"Oh, when did you go?"

"When?"

"Where! I meant where…" Sherman replied with an almost nervous chuckle as he opened the front door of the building and led Rigby to an elevator at the end of the hall.

Rigby watched floor after floor on the buttons pass by them with awe, finally opening up to the large penthouse with the sprawling wooden floors and tall white walls.

"Come on! I'll show you a room you can use!" Sherman excitedly motioned over the painter down one of the halls, and Rigby, having nearly lost track of the very reason for being there, scurried while lifting up a lone bag of belongings and followed after, sliding around on the wooden floor a bit.

"Why would a dog have all-wooden floors?!" the artist grumbled while attempting to gain traction, finally doing so on four legs and with claws out and dug into the wood, not minding the scratches that had now formed in the expensive wood. Sighing in relief after regaining composure, Rigby made the casual walk down the hallway, mouth hanging open at the sight of the large guest room.

"Woah… Is… This a Degas?" Rigby's eyes fell upon the painting hung on the wall opposite a flat screen television.

"Sure! Mr. Peabody loves all sorts of artwork!"

"Hel-lo, patronage…"

"Huh?"

"N-Nothing… So, you live here with him and your parents?"

Sherman snorted a laugh, "Well, yeah… It's Mr. Peabody's place, and he's my dad."

"…What?"

"Ah! There you both are! I was just about to start on dinner!" Mr. Peabody appeared in the doorway of the guest room, his hands clenching on the doorframe as he attempted to push the scratch marks on the otherwise spotless floor from his memory.

Rigby perked up, "Were we doing Chinese or pizza? It's a little late for anything else, isn't it?"

"We like to try a little bit better than takeout. Sherman, why don't you show Rigby around?"

"Are you sure, Mr. Peabody?"

"I think you know what to do," Mr. Peabody said with a smile that said "you know this because you already learned what not to do in this instances".

"Want to see my geodes?" Sherman sighed, his shoulders slumping a bit. With so many legitimately interesting things to look at… Geodes. Geodes were the topic of discussion.

After a lengthy lecture about rocks, Rigby's mind became a swirling mess of sediment, crystals, and stratification. The pounding headache from all of the knowledge that followed was gone as soon as they were called out to dinner and Rigby saw the feast laid out before them.

"I figured since, as you indeed said it was late, we would stick to something light. Broiled fish, a Cobb salad, and Pavlova with blackberry jam for dessert," Peabody pointed to each of the items, a carving knife still in hard and a pleased tone in his voice.

Sherman cringed at the sight of the fish, while Rigby seemingly needed no excuse to start diving in.

"I've never heard of Pavlova before, Mr. Peabody," Sherman said through a bite of one of the meringue desserts, having quickly coursed his way through the salad and fish.

"It's an Australian dessert, Sherman. I'm not shocked that—"

"They wouldn't ring a bell?" Rigby asked through mouth full of salad. "Pavlov? Bell?"

Mr. Peabody blinked. Twice. His mouth twitched. Once.

"I… I don't get it…" Sherman raised an eyebrow. He shrugged off this, as well as the quick look his father shot his guest, and continued to eat the dessert; anything to get the fish taste out of his mouth. "You're not having dessert, Rigby?"

"I can't really taste sweets, but… Ohhh this was more than enough!" Rigby grinned, leaning back in the upright chair. "I forgot what anything that wasn't takeout tasted like!"

Mr. Peabody's eyes narrowed as he watched the cat wipe off residual fish with a paw, and continue with moving the paw upwards, towards an ear. This finally reached a head when Rigby noticed the stare. Slowly Rigby lowered the paw to the table, and Mr. Peabody gave a nod of approval.

Almost as if switching gears, Peabody turned to Sherman, a grin across his face, "Now we've had a long day—Let's say we get some rest."

"Already?" groaned the boy.

"Yes, already… It's nearly an hour past your bedtime as it is, Sherman," Peabody rose from the table the same time his son did, and he led the boy towards his bedroom. "We've had a full day and you still have school in the morning."

And Rigby was left alone with only natural curiosity to keep the cat company. It wasn't long until this urged the artist to explore the seemingly expansive household, starting with a wall filled with photographs, all of the strange, enthusiastic boy with the love of art and geodes.

A news clipping caught Rigby's attention—The cat didn't read all of it, but skimmed through most of the details.

"…And I thought the Littles and that Seville guy had a rough time…" Rigby muttered.

"Ah! I see you've found "the Wall of Sherman"," Peabody walked out, his arms folded behind his back and took in the numerous framed pieces. "All of his accomplishments so far. Not Pulitzers as of yet, but there's no need for that sort of pressure. And there's always middle school."

"You're that Peabody?" Rigby turned his head as the dog returned. "I always thought you'd be…."

"Taller?" Mr. Peabody chuckled.

"I thought you'd have better hair," Peabody's smile fell.

"…Let me pour you a drink…" muttered the dog as he walked past the cat.

"So… He's your son…."

"Correct," Peabody said as Rigby took a seat at the bar, a tumbler already spinning about in his hand.

"I guess what's what you get with being raised by humans…" Rigby chuckled.

"On the contrary, I wasn't. Sherman and I were both left to fend for ourselves. I took it upon myself to make sure that he would have a proper upbringing. I take it you had a family of your own?"

"Well, my mom… We traveled a lot when I was little, after she adopted me. I think that's why I didn't recognize you at first. It sounds like I was in Tibet for a lot of this."

"Tibet? Ah, what a marvelous place…" Peabody sighed a far-off sigh as he slid the over the dark green drink in the tall glass over to Rigby. "The last time I was there I was taking Sherman to meet the Dalai Lama. Wonderful man—Much better tennis player than anyone would expect!"

"She… She photographed sheep migration," Rigby downed the drink quickly, shuddering at the strength of it. "Thanks for the drink—We'll talk about the insurance tomorrow I'm guessing? My people should have the number for the beams and wiring replacement by then."

"The what now? Rigby, I agreed we'd pay for any new damages…"

"Those were damaged. And you can't just put copper and new wiring together."

"Of course you can. I can show you how to do it myself! I wrote a book on the very thing. I have an online Web series on it!"

"I'm not interested in that, I'm interested in getting my building back up to code after a joyrider trashed it. I'm not even including the artwork that you wrecked," Rigby's voice had raised a bit by now, and the grip around the clear glass tightened.

"Very well, we'll cover that, however much it might be…. But we're still not covering the wiring. Or the beams," he finished off in a mutter while pouring his own drink.

"It's going to take twice as long then. I can't stay in a hotel, I work from home!"

"Then we will see to it you have a spot. As you said, we'll finish this tomorrow."

"You're worse than my vet when it comes to bills…" Rigby grumbled before hopping off the stool in front of the bar.

"And if we really want to split hairs, we could bring up this…" Peabody muttered, wandering over to the scratch marks on the wooden floor and sighing with disdain as he finished off his drink with a shudder. Less rum, next time. Just a bit less.


	2. Come Home, Snoopy

The following morning Sherman woke up to fragrant banana pancakes cooking and a bagged lunch with his name on it set on the counter.

"This all looks great, Mr. Peabody!" Sherman gasped as he looked out at the spread before him. He couldn't help but notice the dog scratching behind one of his ears as he finished filling out a field trip slip at the very counter. "Mr. Peabody?"

"Hrm? Oh! Right, here you are, Sherman! Now if you'd wait but a moment I can get my helmet and—"

"Penny's mom is picking me up today, remember, Mr. Peabody?"

"It's Tuesday already? I… All right, then… Stay safe. No driving!" Mr. Peabody attempted to finish his off with the lightest tone he could, in any attempt to hide the slight disappointment at it already being that day in the week again.

He made sure the coast was clear and Sherman had gone before scratching the itch behind his ear with the gusto he had wanted to originally.

He then looked down into his paw, in horror.

"You gave me fleas?!" the dog's cracked voice was what woke Rigby up from his sleep, curled up in a ball in the direct path of a sunbeam.

"Wha..?" the cat sleepily arose, scratched an ear with a pause, and sauntered over to the door lazily.

"Rigby," Mr. Peabody stopped scratching long enough to stand there, his calmest demeanor his could muster spread across his face. "I don't think that this is working."

"The hole in the middle of my home isn't working for me, either," Rigby admitted flatly, adjusting the collar of the worn green sweater. "You don't know if I gave them to you."

"Of course I do. I haven't had this happen since I was a puppy!" Peabody grumbled, shuddering as he felt another pinch.

"All right, I understand… Can I at least get to my work before I start looking?" Rigby sighed, turning to the leather backpack.

"Use the studio one floor below—Yeouch! As for me, I'll be taking care of these… Meeting with the U.N. at noon and now I have to take care of this…." he murmured.

Two too-warm baths later, any signs of them were gone down the drain. Conversely, the U.N. meeting went swimmingly, not that Peabody hadn't expected anything less. The paranoia of one perhaps clinging on was quelled with the signing of the peace contract, and then the decision of where to go for lunch.

It was about three when, while waiting for Sherman to return, he received a text from his son—Would it be all right for him to eat dinner at Penny's that evening? With a sigh of resignation the white dog confirmed that this was all right, and then stared out at the opened recipe books before him, shutting the nearest one. Braised chicken breast could wait another night, apparently.

"Rigby, I'd hope you'd take this as a peace offering," Peabody wandered down to the art studio he'd fashioned for himself, but found no paintings being made, no acrylics or brushes laid out… Not even the cat. He then wandered over to the area he normally reserved for sculptures and found the cat there, flipping through a stack of sketches.

"These… These are all amazing! I'm not even this good yet!" Rigby exclaimed, sitting cross-legged on the floor and holding up a pair of the sketches, "I hope you don't mind my looking at these… You could really do something with these!"

Peabody didn't have the heart or energy to explain how the finished pieces were housed at MOMA and in the lobby of the Empire State Building, respectively, but held out a glass of water, which Rigby accepted gratefully.

"I feel as though we've gotten off to a bad start, and I'm quite sorry for this. Including the accusation from earlier in the morning."

"It's all right… I kinda figured it was the cat thing," Peabody balked at this, and if he'd been able to turn a shade paler than the white, he would have as he clutched the serving tray to his chest.

"I-I can assure you it's nothing of the—"

"Hey, where's your kid at? He seems like he usually isn't too far behind you."

"Sherman had school. And then went out with a friend. Now, I want you to rest assured, but I have no problem and have absolutely never had any problem with—"

"So…. It's just you here? On your own?"

"Well, there are businesses working downstairs. I can go in to attend a board meeting if I so desired."

"…Did you want to go out bowling?"

"Bowling?" Peabody was still focusing more on the "cat" issue. "I don't see why not. Well, I don't mean to brag, but I do happen to know a good lane."

"Great! I have artist's block, bowling should help!" Rigby sprung up from the ground cheerfully. "I'll see you in a few!"

"I… There's nothing wrong with your being a cat, for the record!" Peabody finished calling out, only to find this was mainly to himself.

The bowling alley was a lot closer than Rigby thought—In fact, it happened to be in the basement of the building.

"It was practice for my league," Peabody explained as they walked along the aisles. "Also the employees also like to come down here to unwind after a long day…"

"So that's with up with the people in the suits…" Rigby muttered, selecting the lightest ball possible as they approached their lane amongst the gray-suited men and women around them.

Rigby took pause at the first strike Mr. Peabody made, stood in quiet awe at the third, and was relieved that the third play, a spare, seemingly proved that the dog next to him wasn't a robot set on autopilot.

"Ah, that was good practice!" the dog said after the game had finished up with a score Rigby promised to never remember.

"Yeah, I about threw my shoulder out trying to keep up with you!" Rigby laughed as they walked back up to the elevator and ascended to the penthouse at the top. Rigby rubbed the said shoulder as they stood in the elevator, Rigby taking the quiet opportunity to make conversation, "…So, you… You're a dog, right?"

"Well, I do think it's be im-paws-ible for me to be anything else," said Peabody with a chuckle.

"Yeah… Sorry, I guess you just act more like a human and it kind of threw me. But big words from the talking cat..." the artist murmured, and the door elevators opened. "Hey, maybe if it takes me a little while to find somewhere new, we could do this again."

"Actually, that doesn't sound like half a bad i—"

"I just can't believe he let you drive it!" Penny was in the penthouse when the elevator doors opened, Sherman standing across from her, presumably reenacting the dramatic crash from the other night with a toy rocket and a stack of building blocks shaped into a tall building.

"Yeah, the owner was really nice about it, though!" Sherman finished, and just as quickly turned to face Rigby, who had walked out of the elevator, and Peabody, who remained there and thought, just for a moment, that it would be easy enough to bolt from the situation with Sherman.

"He was driving…?" Rigby's head slowly and purposefully turned back to Peabody, the mint green eyes having gone wide.

"In all of New York you guys run into a talking cat?" Penny wondered aloud, watching this unfold from her spot lounging on the couch while Sherman focused on picking up the pieces of his scale model of the destruction. "You would…"

"I know! Pretty cool, right?"

"Penny, it's good to see you. I don't think you've had the opportunity to meet Rigby, who is staying with us temporarily. Sherman, why don't you go play for a bit in your room?"

"He was driving!?" the two heard repeated as Sherman shut the door, the voice a bit more shrill and insistent.

"Hey, if you can drive it…." Penny wondered offhandedly, twirling her hair.

"Na-ah, Penny. No way, not after last time! Not after last night! I'd be so dead. I'd be super-dead!"

"Come on, we learned all about how to do that, I think you'd be an expert by now!"

"He was DRIVING?" a third time came the voice, now through the door.

"It's that or a night of that."

"….Okay, maybe for just a minute…."

"Hey! Paris!" Penny gasped. "Let's go to Paris!"

The two adults were amidst their bickering still as the two snuck past—It was only when a door clicked that it clicked in Peabody what exactly was going on.

"S-Sherman!" Peabody called out. "Oh no… No, no, no… We went over this, I thought he learned!"

"Isn't obedience sort of your thing?"

Mr. Peabody turned to answer this, but only found himself glaring and pointing before running off in his own direction.

"Not going to get rid of me that easily, Snoopy," Rigby muttered, quietly following behind in a four-legged, sloppy gallop while hurrying to follow on the wooden floor.


	3. Complainte de la Butte

Peabody's panic at seeing the missing WABAC was quelled by his remembering that there was a second option.

"Trusty Mach 2…" he sighed with relief as he hung a left on the walkway, only to have the path extend. It led him to a single, red door, which he swung open after inputting numbers on a computer panel and finding the wormhole with the most activity in question. "Paris, 1910… All right, then… Let's give you that test run we talked about, Mach 2. Let's hope you don't turn out like that apple did. I'd hate to try to reverse being turned inside-out…"

He thought he heard a crunch and a yowl as he slammed the door shut, but instead focused on rushing down the busy Paris streets, now wearing a dark suit jacket, vest, tie, and top hat, and with a cane in hand.

"Now where would they…?" he whispered, looking left and right. He flinched upon feeling something impact with the back of his skull, and reached down to find bits of a tomato staining his paws.

There stood Rigby, tail in hand, wearing a white and pink hat and a high-collared lace dress, and next to a vegetable stand, "If you broke this… You're sunk. And what's with this outfit?! What happened to me?!"

"You can't be here, you should really go back… Then I promise we will get to the bottom of this. The beams, the wiring, everything! You have my word," Rigby dug both back feet into the ground as Peabody attempted to make a push back towards the door. "Everything will be paid for, I assure you!"

"What are you?!" Rigby demanded, spinning around. "Right now I have more proof you're an alien than a dog!"

"I'm a father looking for his son," Peabody answered sharply. "And he's somewhere out here. I need to go find him and stop wasting time on this!"

Rigby stopped struggling. For a few feet, Peabody was even allowed to keep pushing. And then Rigby turned, and immediately started to scale up one of the brick buildings in the crowded Paris streets, dress and all.

"What are you doing?!" Peabody called out.

"Helping get a better look!" Rigby shouted back, followed by a "pardon" while scampering past the surprised woman seated at her balcony enjoying a cup of tea.

"Let's see… It couldn't be quite that far from our wormhole… Rigby, look to the west!"

"West…"

"No, no! that's your east! The sun's on the other side…"

"Got it! Hey! I think I might see them!"

"Are you certain?"

"The one has a pink cell phone! Is that a good enough hint?"

"Penny… All right, I'm going to go after them!"

"W-Wait for me!" Rigby struggled to follow after down the crowded street, finally latching on a few claws to the back of Peabody's coat.

It was too late. Already, they'd vanished again in the crowd. Peabody looked around, in a panic, and Rigby stood there, bent over, before sitting on the ground and panting.

"I… I think I'm dying…" Rigby huffed. "This corset's awful… Why would anyone do this to themselves?"

"Kitty!" Rigby heard an exclamation, and cringed while being lifted up by an unsuspecting girl on the streets.

"Young lady, please put down my friend this instant!" Peabody demanded as she started to walk down the street, Rigby in tow.

"Marie! Put down that fleabag!" scolded a woman holding onto the young girl's hand, presumably her mother. Without much hesitation, but a slight pout on her face, she unceremoniously dropped Rigby to the ground, and Peabody was there to help the cat back up on two feet.

"Why does everything think I—Ugh…. Little brat…"

"Now, now, she didn't know any better. Are you all right?"

"Yeah, fine," Rigby dusted off the skirt of the dress and grumbled, still holding onto one of Peabody's hands. Upon realizing this, Rigby broke their hold, adjusted the lace skirt, and then finally the tussled hat. "Where are we, anyway?"

"The heyday of Paris, in 1911. Approximately August, from the weather and the foliage."

"Nineteen… Wait…" Rigby looked down at the lacey dress, and back up to Peabody, "I've finally done it. I had too much catnip…"

"There will be more time to explain later, Rigby. For now we need to try to find the children… We had enough mess last year."

"I was in Mumbai last year, what happened?"

"Ohhh, nothing too large, just a rip in the space-time continuum."

"I thought daylight savings happened early this year… I really should get a computer or phone," Rigby continued to fidget with the corset, stopping briefly in front of a thick-glassed shop window. "So we're really… In the past? Hey! Can we go in the future, too? I… Hypothetically put a lot on the World Series this year."

"It's going to the Rangers."

"So you saw?"

"No. I'm a fan and hopeful."

Peabody stopped in front of the window, a clothing store with a suit and a dress, side-by-side in the display case.

"It's a pain and only should be used in extreme circumstances, I found…" he continued his walk, his head hung down a bit now, "I don't know why he doesn't listen, especially after everything."

"I didn't always listen to my mom growing up, either. I remember this one time we were in North Uganda… Long story short I got chased by this huge bird. She finally had to chase it off with a tree branch."

"So… Your mother, she was…?"

"Human, yeah. And she didn't raise me any different than she would've a human kid. Well, I guess she gave up on the baths, but—"

"I knew it! You did give me fleas!" Peabody snapped.

"You have no proof of that," Rigby returned while scratching the back of an ear with a back leg.

"…I thought cats were supposed to be clean…"

"I thought dogs were supposed to be able to sniff out things they were searching for," Rigby returned just as quickly.

"We're in Paris in a warm month… Highly improbable I'd be able to make anything out of all of this."

"Is that what that smell is?" Rigby wondered aloud, sniffing the air a bit.

"Why he can't just…" Peabody rose and looked about. After a moment, it clicked, as it always did in its natural fashion, "Wait. I've got it! Come on!"

Again he took Rigby by the hand and they were up again, the cat clutching the corset and bemoaning the run all along the way.

They finally stopped at the steps of a large marble museum. Rigby stopped running with such a quick halt that Peabody fell down onto the steps.

"This… This is…" Rigby gaped at the large structure, jaw open ever-so-slightly.

"The Louvre, yes… As much as I wish we had the time to look around, you win some, you Louvre some."

Rigby snorted a laugh after a moment of blanking, "Are… Are you sure they're in there?"

"Positive."

"Well, that'd… Give us some time to look around at least a little bit? Maybe?"

"…It's going to be a fast walk."

"You're such a parent…" Rigby muttered, now walking up the steps along with the dog companion. "At least the Mona Lisa."

"About that..."

"I don't care if it's still back in the present… Something about seeing it without that think panel of glass…"

"You certainly do know your art history. Where did you attend college, if you don't mind my asking?"

"I never went to school," Rigby shrugged. "My mom just taught me while we traveled. She went. I think she was afraid of what would happen if I went on my own… You know, little kitty in the big city?"

"Well, parents worry about these things…." Peabody said, clenching his cane just a bit.

"Plus, who would let a cat in school?"

"Well, I—Oh! There they are!" Peabody finally saw them in a break in the crowd, in front of a lot mural of a painting, Sherman's arms moving wildly as he explained a part of a painting to Penny. Peabody began his walk towards them, only to have this stopped by another paw.

"Just let them be for a second… It's kind of cute," Rigby said with a tilt of the head. "Look at them. It's like a little date."

"They're much too young for that…."

"Maybe, but it's still cute…"

Sherman nearly jumped out of his glasses upon turning around to see his father there. Mr. Peabody couldn't be held back by cat or even an act of God at that moment, and bounded for the boy after meeting eyes with him.

"M-Mr. Peabody! H-How'd you get here?!""

"It was my idea!" Penny exclaimed before Peabody could get a word in, jumping in front of Sherman just as quickly.

"That's fine—Your parents are going to find out about this as well anyway, Penny."

"What?" both children gasped.

"I promise it won't happen again, and I really mean it!" Sherman said.

"Plus we wanted to give you and your girlfriend space," Penny added, pointing over to dumbfounded cat. "You two were arguing like… Well… Cats and dogs."

Peabody balked, "My what?"

"Yeah, his what?! That's Mr. Ri—Ohhh…." Sherman's arm fell from where he'd been pointing at Rigby. Suddenly…. So much clicked. Including the dress, decked out in delicate lace. Certainly, he'd seen Mr. Peabody dress like this once or twice, on various adventures, but it never occurred to him…

"Sherman…. This is Ms. Rigby. Ms. Kimberly Rigby. The artist…" Peabody slapped his forehead and waved over to the cat. "Who is staying as a guest because her home was destroyed the other evening. During another joyride."

"Ehehe…" Sherman chuckled bashfully and shrunk a bit at this.

"We're headed home this instant. We're going to have a very, very lengthy discussion about this sort of thing."

"It's not the Trojan War or anything…. It's harmless, Mr. Peabody!"

"The Mona Lisa's been stolen!" gasped a man from the crowd suddenly.

"…August 22nd, 1911. One day after the Mona Lisa was stolen, people finally realized that it was simply lifted away… We never really notice these things until they're gone. The culprit took off that way!" Peabody shouted, turning and pointing in the direction of the country of Italy. This resulted in two guards taking off running, and Peabody adding, "All right, we're off."

Rigby looked back at the disappointed children as they walked out, the four together, two by two. She then took hold of Peabody's arm, much more gently than in times past, and cleared her throat, "Could we get something to eat, first? I… Think that time travel made my blood sugar low."

"Well, we can't have that… All right. We'll get something and then we're headed home."

Rigby winked at the two along the way, and linked an arm with the genius at her side, as many of the women down the street did with the women next to them.

"…Are you sure they're not dating?" Penny asked.

"Ew, gross! They've known each other for only a couple of days! And I think they hate each other. More than a little bit."

As he spoke, he grew aware that the two animals in front of him were in their own world… Some talk about Mayan culture and pottery. He noticed the tail of his father, wagging ever so slightly.

"Uh. Huh," Penny nodded sharply, and Sherman gulped.

The eyes of both children went wide as desserts were carted over on a silver tray, and these were added with excited smiles as come small cakes were laid out in front of them.

Rigby looked at her own, a small tray of cookies she'd been served on a platter, shrugged, and chose to dip these in tea, crunching them loudly.

"Not a bad ganache," Peabody attempted to ignore the crunching as calmly as possible by focusing on his cake, and by clearing his throat and adjusting his glasses as he glanced up to his son. "Sherman, I understand your wanting to go off and have fun, but doing this after such a short time after the last incident is unacceptable. I'm going to have to think long and hard about your renewal to the Audubon society."

The boy gave a moan, "B-But Mr. Peabody—"

"No buts. And no giggling about "buts," either. You're going to have to learn that time travel is incredibly serious, and not to be abused. I—" he noticed Rigby yet again cleaning her mouth by licking her paw. "Please refrain from doing that at the table. It's a bad example."

"So are you gonna be living with them long?" Penny asked, her voice lowering as she leaned in to the cat.

"Unless I find a hotel. I'm gonna try to make the best of it. Accidents happen to everyone, after all," Rigby muttered, setting both of her paws at the table.

"Not to everyone," Peabody sighed.

"What if you accidentally find a dollar on the street? That happens to everyone."

"Then you happen to find a dollar on the street. That's a coincidence. And it's statistically impossible that that would happen to everyone."

"But it's a happy accident that you looked down to find it."

"And that's a coincidence you happened to look down and find it."

"…If you replaced this with talking about who paid the car insurance, this would be my parents," Penny muttered, watching the discussion continue go back and forth between the two.

"Then what about irony?" Rigby interjected.

"We weren't even… Our destroying your building was an accident. It was a coincidence that there happened to be an intelligent cat in there and it was struck by an intelligent dog. It's an irony that a cat and dog are sitting together having a civil discussion."

"Are we? I hadn't noticed."

"This is worse than setting my thesis advisor straight," Peabody said with a rub of the temples.

Rigby stood up from her seat, and without a word walked out of the restaurant.

"Um. Mr. Peabody…? What happened?"

"I… I'm not sure, Sherman?" the dog answered, seemingly not believing his own words. "Excuse me, children."

"….Did I really just hear that?" Sherman whispered as Peabody walked out of the restaurant, after the cat.

"Even better, I just got that on video," Penny answered, holding up her cell phone.

"Ahem…" Rigby glanced up to the outstretched hand as she sat alone on the curb of the now quiet sidewalk. "We're running out of feet to get started badly on, you realize."

"Still have two more..." Rigby muttered. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have stormed out. Not in front of your kid."

"Nothing's perfect. I've learned that…. With great difficulty and kicking and screaming along the way, I might add," he helped her to rise from the sidewalk and walked with her back down the sidewalk.

"I lied when I said I didn't know who you were… I… I mean, of course everyone's heard of you. I think I was just a little… Intimidated?" she laughed. "I know that's ridiculous. And I guess I just feel like an idiot, and the harder I try to keep up the worse it gets."

"Out of the contrary, it's completely understandable," after a pause, though, he cleared his throat. "As is often the case when meeting someone new. Having an illustrious artist such as yourself in our presence is equal cause for trepidation. But… If you wanted to stay for a bit while the repairs are made, that will dissipate."

"In all honesty, I don't understand half of what you say, but I understood the "stay" part… And I don't think I've got much of an option, at this point," she chuckled, waving as they saw Sherman and Penny waiting outside.

"…This is so gross…" Sherman muttered, shuddering.

"I made sure the door was locked on the Mach 2, so we should be fine to all fly back together."

It was only when they were all seated in the WABAC and halfway back home that there was the realization that no one had paid the tab on at the restaurant.

"I'll have to go back on to tomorrow tomorrow and leave the bill… And an apology," said Mr. Peabody, clearing his throat.


	4. Chica Chica Boom Chic

The hits on this have been astonishing. Even if you don't review... I think you for taking the time to visit.

Sherman had been quiet on his way to school, staring down at his backpack. His father would look occasionally over to him whenever they were stopped at a red light or sign.

"Sherman," Peabody called out boy as he was on his way towards the front stairs of his school. "I've been thinking on it. We'll renew that membership when you get home this evening."

The smile from Sherman was there… But smaller than Peabody had hoped, "…Thanks, Mr. Peabody…"

The drive back home alone was a long one, Peabody's mind wracking as to what was possibly the matter with the boy.

This finally led to a visit with a familiar friend later in the morning.

"Where do I even begin…?" Peabody sat back on against the couch, staring up at the ornate ceiling and taking in the smell of smoke from a cigar.

"Perhaps tell me about your mother," came a thick Austrian accent from the leather wingback chair in the book-lined office.

"Well, I don't really remember that much. Perhaps an attempt to talk with her about chess that ended with her attempting to eat one of my rooks, but beyond that…"

"You realize this is unorthodox to have you seated on my couch when you were just helping me with a dissertation last week, Mr. Peabody."

"I understand that, Sigmund," the white dog sat up from his spot and furrowed his brow. "But even this brain needs some clearing and reorganizing again."

"Perhaps we could try hypnosis?"

"Unfortunately my mind's a bit too advanced to be placed under it."

"Well, I have someone coming in at three, but if you want to continue this later…."

"Sigmund," Peabody drew a sly smile. "You and I both know that you're off to undoubtedly get Mr. Jung back for something he's done."

"He left a flaming bag on my doorstep, that criminal!" Freud scowled and slammed his notebook to the ground. "A flaming bag! Do you have any idea what happened when I tried to put it out?!"

"…Unfortunately I do," Peabody sighed. "What were you planning on doing?"

"A bucket of water over his door. Hehe, he'll never see it coming, the nitwit!"

"Best of luck to you then, Sigmund," Peabody chuckled, and made his way out of the office, still hearing Freud's cackling in the distance.

The disappointment with time travel was that sometimes not as much time passed as he would have liked. In fact, an afternoon in Austria had only resulted in a few minutes in his own time.

"Maybe I should visit Skinner… No. Anyone but Skinner and the boxes," Peabody said to himself with a shudder as he wandered down the hall of his house, stopping at the wall of photos—There were new additions, including articles about their exploits from last year.

"…I just can't risk coming that close to losing you again…" Peabody said to himself.

Gathering his drafting supplies, he walked down to his art studio, finding a cat down there, up to her arms in paint. She flicked several drops of paint as she waved to him wordlessly and then resumed work on her painting. It was a large piece, enough to fill an entire wall, Peabody noted as he laid out the supplies on a table before him. The little specks that filled the painting seemingly had neither rhyme nor reason as she paced back and forth, while the dog, seated on his own side, carefully mapped out the dimensions he needed on a large white sheet of paper.

"What're you doing?" she was the one who stopped first, wandering over with her paint-stained arms.

"Helping redesign your building for you… I figured it was the least I could do. Perhaps… Make a few improvements."

"What's that?" she pointed out another sheet of paper, and the dog dutifully brought it to the front, showing off the beginnings of a bicycle.

"Oh! This is for Sherman's birthday coming up. I figured there's store bought, but why not take it a step further?"

"There's an air conditioner built into it?"

"For the warm months. It converts to heating for the wintertime."

"Anddd a Panini maker."

"Is it too much?"

"No. Just perfect," she wiped some paint off on her sweater and then dabbed her forehead. "How long is that going to take, though?"

"Well, a time machine took an afternoon, so… Maybe two hours if I'm a bit tired," he then swiveled in his chair, and his smile fell for the first time as he noticed how caked in paint his companion was.

"…What?"

"We have a policy of honesty in this home, so… I'm afraid I have to tell you I'm quite tempted to bring out my weather machine and summon a downpour in this very room."

"All right, all right, you win," she held up her arms in defeat, wiping across her face with a sweater sleeve and leaving a trail of yellow and blue paint that gave her the look of some sort of ancient warrior gone to battle. "Show me the way."

The door to the bathroom shut after Peabody left her, the tub still filling with water and the cat staring at it, not quite knowing whether to trust it or not. He was in the process of putting away a stack of plates in the kitchen when he heard a yowl come from the same room. He reached out, expertly retrieving each of these and preventing them from smashing to the ground—One a mere inch off of the hard floor that he gripped while bent nearly completely backwards. He then hopped down from the stool he'd been standing on and rushed to see what had happened to his temporary housemate.

He burst open the door, and was greeted with a scream. He yelled in return, and ducked out of the way of several shampoo bottles. It was the rubber duck that finally hit him in-between the eyes, "It was just hot! Close the door, close the door!"

"Closing, closing!" he shouted in return, clutching his chest after slamming the door shut and leaning against it.

"…Why are your glasses dented, Mr. Peabody?"

"A minor catastrophe, Sherman. Nothing I wasn't able to effectively handle, though," Mr. Peabody answered as his boy climbed into the sidecar of the scooter. "How was school?"

"Okay, I guess…"

"Sherman, I have the feeling as though there's something you're not telling me. Now come on, out with it. We promised to tell the truth no matter what, remember?" Peabody reminded him as they made the turn towards home.

"Well… It's always gonna be just us, right?"

"Haha, of course not. You're going to go off, twenty, thirty years from now, and get married…. And maybe ten or so more years down the road think about starting a family of your own. After you've settled down from whatever adventuring or athletics you desire to pursue. I do, however, recommend children before running for the presidency. If you don't by then, whenever would you have the time at all!"

"I guess… What're you gonna do?"

"Me? Well, same as I've always done. Help make the world better for everyone, refine my skills... Maybe pick up a new language or four!"

"You're not gonna get married or anything weird like that, are you?"

Peabody gave a laugh, "With the number of hearts that would break? It'd be a national tragedy!"

"Okay, good," Sherman slid back in his seat and breathed a sigh of relief. "Hey, they're having parent day coming up, Mr. Peabody!"

"Wonderful! Now you're sure you don't mind me coming?"

"No, but… Mr. Peabody?"

"Yes, Sherman?"

"Um… Maybe try not to tell as many jokes?"

"Now where would the pun be in that?"

Sherman got that one… And groaned.

The sound of a fire extinguisher guzzling and sputtering was the first they the dog and his boy noticed when they returned to their penthouse.

"Stay back and get the phone in case we need to call the fire department!" Peabody ordered Sherman, rushing into the kitchen to see his stove still smoking, and a lone cat in a bathrobe standing with a fire extinguisher almost as tall as her.

"I… I wanted toast…" said Rigby weakly.

"Sherman! Grab your coat! We're going out for dinner!" Peabody called out.

"Is there still a fire?"

"Not anymore!"

"Cool! Can Penny come?"

"Certainly!"

"Definitely one of my favorite spots," Peabody couldn't help by hop a bit as he, Sherman, Penny, and Rigby walked down the black and white wavy sidewalks, Peabody and Sherman bother dressed in tuxedoes, Penny in a blue knee-length dress and Rigby in a more fitted red gown. "And such a lovely time, too… The Copacabana promenade… And not too far, the famous Casino da Urca. Perhaps it's a little early for you to start gambling, Sherman and Penny, but it doesn't mean we can't take in the fruits of some culture… Perhaps in the form of a young singer named Carmen Miranda?"

"The fruit hat lady, Mr. Peabody?" asked Sherman.

"The very same, Sherman!" Mr. Peabody replied as they approached the brightly lit front steps of the casino.

"Your dad seems in a good mood. Like, when he photographed an atom good," Penny noted, the concern evident in her voice.

"Yeah, we had a talk," Sherman raised his hands over his head and stretched. Penny only rolled her eyes and shook her head, keeping her smile as they walked in to be seated at a table.

"Ah, this is also the home of the famous Urca process… A process that helps in the cooling of neutron stars into white dwarves. Even a place such as this can prove some scientific relevancy," Peabody pulled out a chair for Rigby, while Sherman did the same for Penny after a reminder from Peabody in the form of a nod.

"Looks like they're just dancing, now," Rigby noticed the flocks of people on the floor, all taking part in spirited movement across the floor.

"Reminds me of when I learned the tango back in Argentina," Peabody wistfully sipped the glass of water that was brought to him at the table and watched the dancers. "The poor woman was two feet taller than me. We still managed a first in that competition with some… Fancy footwork."

"Yeah, I don't really see anyone here, either," Rigby said through a mouthful of one of the free breadsticks she'd noticed at the table. "Guess you're out of luck tonight."

Peabody glanced to her, the floor, the lights, and then noted the tempo of the music, the dimensions of the floor, the movements of the lights, and finally the height of the little glutton to the right of him.

"Would you care to join me, Miss Rigby?"

"What?!" the yells were universal from her, as well as Sherman. She pounded her chest to digest the rest of the bread, and then laughed.

"Y-You're joking, right? I couldn't…"

"It's simple enough. I'll lead, naturally. And you have natural reflexes, so just follow my lead," he held out a hand to her, and cautiously she accepted it.

"Ughhh… I miss being forced to walk the plank," Sherman groaned as he watched his father take the floor with the unsure partner.

"I'll whisper the steps to you, and you'll be quick enough to pull them off," Peabody whispered as he led her out to a spot on the floor. Looking to the conductor, he waved one of his hands about, as if to signal the band, and the conductor nodded dutifully, gradually changing the pace to something a bit more dramatic.

"I don't know if I—" Rigby gasped in surprise at the first spin to the right, but, to her stunned silence, managed to follow along.

"Left foot extend, dip. Backwards, kick, backwards, kick, turn, spin," he whispered in a succession to her, leading as she carried out these steps, not noticing the spotlight on them.

"…I've never seen your dad do that, either," Penny admitted, her eyebrows raised. "No wonder he gets all of those cards and stuff for Valentine's."

"This is so gross…" Sherman gagged, and found his taste for breadsticks having suddenly diminished. Penny playfully nudged him and stuck her tongue out, watching the performance in the middle of the ballroom floor.

"You're doing a fine job of looking the part as well, I should add," Peabody said as he led Rigby back a few paces. "Now you're going to lean in to me for this bit."

"What? Really? I'd fall of my face!"

"Just lean. I promise no harm will come of it. Trust me."

After a moment's hesitation she did so, before a few more pointed spins and finally resting against him after the dance had finished. It was then she noticed the crowds, and the applause. She shrunk a bit, her shoulders falling and her head bowing down, but one of her hands were taken, and Peabody bowed briefly, kissing the paw and then smiling.

"You were a formidable partner," he said before they made their way back to the table.

"You… You were really good, too," she immediately returned to eating her breadsticks, cringing every time she caught someone's eyes upon them.

"I finally feel as though those dance lessons paid off!" he toasted his water glass and then sipped from it as they watched the aforementioned "fruit hat lady" waltz out onto stage, her hips shaking back and forth as she did so against the clapping and cheers of the audience.

"This is bad…" Sherman said to himself.


	5. Mambo Italiano

A/N: Yes, I changed the title. Sorry for that. I just wasn't feeling the one I'd already selected. I do that a lot, even with my chapter file names. Thank you for putting up with that minor inconvenience.

Feel free to leave opinions, and please enjoy!

Peabody nearly fell out of bed from the shaking, and bolted up, immediately reaching for his glasses, "Sherman! Sherman, the earthquake machine's gone awry again, where—Oh. There you are… What are you doing in here so early?"

The boy hopped up onto the bed excitedly after the acknowledgment from his father, "I was thinking maybe we could get an early start on the day since it's Saturday!"

"Oh? Well… All right," Peabody yawned and stretched, sitting up in the bed. "I dare say I haven't seen you this excited in quite some time!"

"Guess I'm just in the mood to learn!"

"Really? Sherman, that's wonderful!" Peabody exclaimed, hopping out of his bed and clasping his paws together. "Let's be off!"

"Yeah!" the boy laughed, leading the way.

They weren't in the early-morning Manhattan penthouse by the end of the hour—And by the afternoon they looked out upon an expanse of desert, while perched atop the back of a horse.

Peabody lifted up the brim of his white ten-gallon hat as they wandered into the silent Old West town, Sherman peering curiously towards the shut windows and blinds that drew even tighter.

"…What are they so afraid of, Mr. Peabody?"

"Well, Sherman… Either it's tax season, or we're not alone here."

"When are we, anyway?"

"October 26, 1881, Tombstone, Arizona. Well, the Arizona Territory. To be precise, we're at the O.K. Corral."

"Okay? Everyone seems pretty bad-off to me…"

"Your horse is illegally parked! For the last dang time I'm tellin' ya to move it!" Sherman became aware of a man shouting near a trough where a brown horse had been lapping water without a care in the world.

Another man, this one rougher-looking by far, snarled and shoved the first man, "Are you callin' me a liar!"

"Yer jus' lucky I don't take ya in for anythin' else!"

"Ah, it'd appear as though we came at just the right time… That man on the right is Frank McLaury—The one on the left is none other than Doc Holliday!" Peabody whispered excited, slowing his horse down. "We're at the scene of the famous shootout at the O.K. Corral. Versions differ on what exactly happened to start the fight between the two groups… But it looks as though we're getting a firsthand glance!"

"Hey! What're you lookin' at?!" McLaury shouted at the dog and his boy.

"Ah, nothing in particular. We were just… Moseying," said Peabody with a chuckle.

"McLaury! You get three seconds to get outta Dodge or—"

"I ain't even in Dodge!" McLaury shot back.

"Frank! Frank, what's goin' on!?" other men barreled out of a saloon, and Sherman watched from behind as several men stormed out of what looked to be a sheriff's office.

"You may want to close your eyes for this, Sherman. Things in the West are about to head south," Peabody whispered, attempting to backtrack his horse into a nearby alley.

"Ah no you don't!" another man, apparently on Frank's side of things, grabbed Peabody's horse by the reigns. "We're gonna use this to make a run for it."

"What're Billy, Ike, an' me supposed to use, then?!"

"I don't know, Clanton! You got wits!"

"They couldn't find hay in a haystack," Peabody sighed, and slid off of his horse. "Gentlemen, if I may…"

"You may not!" shouted one of the sheriffs. "Get on outta here, dogey."

"Ah, Mr. Earp. Well, you see, I think we can all come to some sort of mutual—Understanding!" Peabody finished this sentence with a spin, and before any of the outlaws could pull out their weapons, he'd fired several times—A bullet hole now decorating every hat. The outlaws looked on, stunned, and Peabody blew some smoke off of the barrel. "Now I want each of you to go home and apologize to your parents for heaven only knows what you've put them through! Go on, get!"

After a stunned pause, Billy nudged Ike, and as if choreographed, all of the outlaws took off running.

"Not bad," Peabody nodded in satisfaction, handing the gun back to Earp and climbing back atop his horse with Sherman. "Sheriff. Sherman, tip your hat. It's only polite."

Sherman did so, and with an opened mouth Earp managed to reach up and tip his own ten-gallon hat.

"That was so great!" Sherman exclaimed on their drive back home. "I mean, just how you… And then… And then BAM!"

"Just remember violence is never an answer, Sherman. I merely did that to intimidate those men out of terrorizing anyone any further."

"Yes, Mr. Peabody…."

"…Although… It was a bit impressive, I must admit."

"Where were you thinking now?"

"Oh, well, don't you have a friend's birthday party to attend? It's this Saturday, isn't it?"

"Oh yeah! I nearly forgot!" Sherman gasped. "Wait! I totally forgot to pick up a present."

"Not to worry, I took the liberty of picking up something myself yesterday."

"Really? Thanks!"

"Never a problem," he reached over and patted the boy on the head, and looked up thoughtfully for a moment. "And I know someone else's birthday is very quickly approaching. Have you thought about what you'd like? An electron microscope? A Latin translator?"

"A copy of Wreck and Smash 3?"

"Certainly not. You're still much too young for that level of violence."

"…Is that an irony, Mr. Peabody?"

"…Sherman, I can't possible quantify you how proud you've made me just now."

"Welcome back!" nothing in the penthouse was on fire. Already that was a good sign.

"I see you recovered from the previous few nights ago," Peabody tilted his head as he noted the still-present limp of the cat.

"Nothing a little ice can't do," she attempted to laugh this off while cringing. "I was just getting over the bruises from the corset, too."

"I see you've been working," Peabody's shoulders fell as he noticed the trail of paint on the floor.

"Yeah, it's almost done! I had time for another one of those bath things, too," she exclaimed. "I've actually got more room now than I did at my old place."

"This has been noted and is being remedied," Peabody declared proudly. "It'll take a bit longer to make the repairs now, you understand. I hope this is all right with you."

"As long as I don't end up killing your kitchen."

"There are some fresh meals I froze in the freezer. You can help yourself to some of these if you wish. I'd rather spend the extra time cooking than deal with an inferno. Sherman! Let me go grab that gift!"

"How long is she going to be staying with us, Mr. Peabody?" Sherman asked in a whisper as they both off in search of the present.

"Well, with the newest change, we'll need to start at the foundation… So possibly a month? Two?"

"A MONTH?" Sherman squeaked as they wandered into Peabody's, the dog switching on the light to the room and pulling the wrapped present out of an otherwise empty dresser drawer.

"Yes. Is there a problem with that? I thought you both were getting along well. And you were the one who asked for me to have her stay with us in the first place."

"Yeah, but… That was before…"

"Before…? Sherman… Sit," Peabody hopped on the bed and motioned for Sherman to do so, after a moment's hesitation. "She's merely a friend. There's nothing at all for you to be worried about."

"You promise?"

"I swear on the grave of Galileo himself," Peabody made a cross sign over his chest to signify this. "Take in the culture of having someone new in the house with a different viewpoint. I am."

"You guys seem to get into arguments a lot."

"I didn't say it was a particularly good culture. We just come from different mindsets is all. Much like you and some of your friends."

"You mean like Penny?"

"Exactly! You're an intellectual young boy, and Penny is the same, but you both go about it completely different ways."

"Like how she threatens to beat people up?"

"It's not a point I'd agree with, much less enjoy you agreeing with, but yes."

"All right," Sherman reached over to embrace his father suddenly, and Peabody reveled in this, returning the embrace.

"All right then. Now time to get to that party! Do you remember the rules?"

"Limit myself to two sodas, say please and thank you…"

"And…?"

"And if people start taunting the party clown it doesn't mean I should join in. We're in a recession and everyone has to make a living and should be respected for their career paths equally," replied the little boy, as if almost quoting scripture.

"That's the spirit!" Peabody led his son out of the bedroom, a paw on his back. "Would you be all right if our friend went with us, Sherman?"

"Yeah, yeah that's fine!" Sherman exclaimed.

"Rigby, would you like to—"

"YES! I… I mean… I don't know how to work a microwave and I would've starved," Rigby chuckled nervously, wringing her hands together.

The three zoomed around on the scooter, Rigby sitting behind Peabody on the driver's seat, occasionally pointing out artwork and buildings that they passed.

"All right… How about that one?" she pointed over to a large church as they drove past it, and Sherman gave a laugh.

"Easy! That's neo-gothic!"

"And that's amazing!" she returned over the sound of traffic.

"Have a good time!" Peabody called out as Sherman hopped out of the sidecar, bagged gift in hand. "Remember to call me if you want to come home early, for any reason! I'll be here."

"I will. Hey, Mr. Peabody, what is this gift, anyway?"

"Ah! An unabridged dictionary! Similar to the one you got last year!"

"G-Great…. I'll see you, Mr. Peabody!"

Rigby noticed Peabody remaining there until Sherman was met by his classmate's mother at the door of the complex. She looked up and waved to Peabody, shouting out, "Remember next Thursday!"

"I will! Thank you Jill!"

"What's that?" asked Rigby.

"My turn to bring bagels to the PTA meeting," he answered, taking off yet again.

"So you'd be—"

"Don't say it—"

"The bagel Beagle?"

"And there it is…"

"It's cute. Oh, hey, you've got the yellow light."

"You mean the green light."

"Yellow. How do you even see green?"

"…Ohhh."

Light bulb, thought Peabody.

"Please tell me there's a buffet behind your hands. Please," Rigby tripped slightly over the seventeeth-cenutry Italian-style blue dress, catching herself at the last minute.

"In a way I suppose it could be considered that."

He stopped her in the center of the room, and Rigby took in any hints she could as to where she was. Cool tile floor… Warm sun… Echoes… And the smell of wood and flowers.

Peabody removed his paws slowly, enhancing the effect, "Wait to open your eyes, just a moment."

She felt something lower over her eyes, and her nose twitched, "What are you—"

"You'll see in but a moment. This is something I developed while still a pup. Patent pending, of course. All right, you may open your eyes!"

Rigby did so, slowly.

"This is color," Peabody explained, having taken a few steps back. This moment belonged to her… To encroach on it felt… Wrong.

Rigby spun around once, slowly, taking in all of the details on the ceiling. The brightness and intensity left her speechless. Gingerly she reached down, feeling the ground to make sure she was still alive, and gently laid herself down on the floor of the Sistine Chapel, all at once attempting to look at everything as a whole and everything as a part, everything as a light, and everything as a dark.

"…Not even catnip was this good…" she finally said, breaking the silence of only birds chirping in the distance.

"The glasses work to readjust the cones so that things come… Into focus a bit more… Fortunately I had a smaller pair handy… We've been looking to market them starting next year," after about an hour of taking in every detail of the Sistine chapel, the two had decided to go for a walk down one of the streets, back towards the WABAC.

"I'll definitely have to buy a pair, then."

"Well, you can keep those in the meantime."

"…You really mean that?"

"Of course! I have a pair, I can make others, it's not really a—" Peabody wasn't braced for the hug that followed, and immediately stiffened as the cat's arms locked around his neck. "It's for your job, after all…"

"Sorry, was that… That was out of line."

"I definitely appreciate the sentiment," he adjusted his own dark red outfit and cleared his throat.

"It is sad I'm starting to love the fact you ruined my home?"

"I'd say not. Sometimes these things happen. You look down an alley and happen to see someone there who… You don't know it, but will become one of the main focuses of your life. It's all just—"

"Coincidence."

"I'd call that kismet."

"Don't go adding new words into this!" she laughed. "What's that mean, anyhow?"

"It's a Turkish term referring to a belief in fate."

"So this is fate to you, too?"

"There's the scientific part of me that believes in actions and reactions. But there's also the romantic that likes to think that fate's a possibility."

"Oh, really now?" Rigby stopped in front of the WABAC, and in front of Peabody. He searched in vain for the opening to it, stopping his search at the sudden sound of hissing from his companion.

"What did I do n—" Peabody turned and found a dog, smaller than himself, yapping towards him and bouncing about 8excitedly. "Oh, hello. No thank you. On your way. Go on. Go."

Rigby let out another hiss, and Peabody huffed and rolled his eyes, positioning himself staunchly in-between the cat and dog.

"Bark. Bark bark," said the genius with nary a hint of enthusiasm and folded arms.

The pup only continued to yap in return.

"I'm afraid I'm not catching what you're saying and you're going to have to slow down a bit. I think your accent's a bit think."

Rigby's paranoia over the small dog had passed, and now she glanced over Peabody's shoulder to the puppy.

"I think he wants you to play with him?"

"I can't tell; he's not slowing down. Oh, excuse me. She. She's not slowing down."

"Just bark back at him."

"What did you think I was just doing?"

"That. That was really you barking?" Rigby blinked.

"It's perfectly structured for the period. Perhaps the accent's a little off, but let's face it, I'm a New Yorker."

"I… Like you're shouting. From the chest."

"Ah, like a fine aria," Peabody nodded in confirmation, and bent down in front of the brown and white dog. "Woof. Woof."

"Like you're shouting, like I broke something. Like Sherman took the WABAC without permission to… What's it… The Great Plague?"

"I believe you mean the Black Plague."

"Sure, okay! Just try it."

Peabody regained his stance in front of the dog, who by now had taken a seat in front of him, its head tilted. One last time he attempted this, and the strange dog perked up excitedly at the successful bark.

"There. If I can perform Pagliacchi on short notice, anything is possible," Peabody cleared his aching throat and turned back to the cat, who was holding back another laugh.

"Are you going to try that, too?" she chuckled, pointing to the dog that was now rolling in the dirt and growling happily. Peabody cringed and opened the door to the WABAC, motioning for Rigby to climb in first.

"I'm sorry, I'm just not available right now," Peabody whispered on his way into the WABAC before ducking in. He poked his head out once more, and reached out, patting the dog on the head, "With your personality, you'll meet the right one, I'm certain of it!"

"What was all of that about?" Rigby asked after he'd shut the door and walked to the pilot's seat.

"Ohhhh, nothing, nothing!" Peabody replied, rushing to set their coordinates for home. "Just a little compliment. Just a compliment. Really. It's the dog's honest truth."

Rigby leaned back and grinned, taking in the new, vibrant blue light in front of them.


	6. Ue o Muite Arukō

A very big, gracious thank you to those who have reviewed; I can't tell you how much I appreciate it. It always makes the writing so very worth it.

And if you hadn't already picked up, each of the chapter titles is from a song that's from the country/area the chapter takes place in. Chapter two's title is a bit of a stretch, admittedly, but I feel like it still worked.

The last student's father had been a banker, and had brought in free pens for the children. The balding man's shoulders fell as the next parent showed up, along with a briefcase. And when he opened the leather case, and the laser simulation began.

The boy sitting in front of Sherman turned around and whispered, "Dude… Both of my parents are brain surgeons and I'M jealous."

The young boy beamed—If only they knew, he thought with a giggle as he sat for attention during the presentation.

"…Sherman's dad is a dog?" asked another student to himself.

"You're new here, so you get a break, but if that's a problem we can talk about it at lunch," Penny said with a whisper, having leaned forward to the student while clenching a pen in her one hand, pointed side aimed at the student. The student only gulped and nodded quickly, choosing to face straight ahead, sweating and eyes wide.

A knock came from the door, and Sherman and a few of the other students became aware of a black flash hopping up and down in the window of the classroom. Even Peabody, who had been in the middle of his discussion on his occasional spaceflights, perked his ears up and gave a pause as the teacher silently rushed over to the door, opening it and looking back and forth for who could have possibly been there. She nearly dismissed it when she heard the crinkling of a paper bag raised up in her direction.

"Sherman forgot this on the way out," came the quiet voice of the cat, shrinking out of the way of the students who had all craned their necks to see her.

"Thank you," the teacher smiled, having quickly recovered from the presence of the cat in the dull green sweater. Rigby gave a quick wave to Sherman and then rushed away, her head bowed.

"So… Is his mom a cat?" asked the student seated in front of Penny.

"She's NOT my mom," Sherman snapped, having heard the whisper. "She's just staying with us for a little while."

"So'd my nanny before she became my new stepmom," snorted another student.

"How would you like to be eating your teeth for lunch instead of chicken nuggets today?" Penny growled at the student in question, swiveling around and balling one of her fists.

"Now, now that's enough, children. Mr. Peabody, if you'd like to continue…" the exasperated teacher rubbed her forehead and sighed.

"…Yes. As I was saying…" Peabody cleared his throat, and resumed his presentation, looking again to his once-proud son but only noting the folded arms and downward stare.

"Well, I think that went well!" Peabody returned that afternoon from a meeting at the patent office and with a publisher, and Sherman wordlessly hopped into the sidecar. "…And that was very nice of our houseguest to bring you your lunch in the midst of her work. Wasn't it, Sherman?"

"I guess…"

"Sherman, I don't know why you're so convinced that having company over is going to change anything."

"You're all into doing mushy stuff, lately! Don't act like you're not! Come on… Dancing? That's so gross!"

"It was merely a dance, Sherman. Ms. Rogers and I shared one not too long ago. And some talk about art. Nothing really beyond that."

"You like her!"

"I like many people, Sherman. But not with the regard or depth that I do for you. You're my son, and no one else will ever have that distinction. There are different ways to like someone."

"What if… What if you go off and have other kids?"

"I have no interest in doing that—One round of diapers was enough for anyone," Peabody chuckled, reached over, and patted his son's helmet. "Why don't you attempt to spend some time with her, yourself? I'm sure you'd quickly be convinced as to why you shouldn't worry at all if you did."

"You have to do what now?" Rigby turned, still admiring the greens and whites of her kimono.

"Just a meeting with a daimyo for a game of gō. You two should have great fun, even without me!" Peabody laughed vaguely, backing away from the pair. Sherman shrugged this off to the cat and they walked up towards the pristine temple.

"Well, you're the time travel expert. What do we do now?"

"I think we're supposed to both like looking at it," Sherman shrugged, only cicadas in the distance breaking up the silence between the two as they stood in front of the Kyoto temple.

"…Did you want to go explore the woods over there?"

"Huh?"

"Come on," Rigby lifted up the skirt of her kimono just a bit and leading Sherman towards the forest surrounding the golden temple.

The first thing they did was climb of the nearby maples, "I thought it'd give you a better look of the roof!" Rigby explained, holding onto Sherman's hand as he helped him balance on the branch of the tree. "See, you can check out all of the tiles there."

And indeed he did, now seeing the glinting tiles for all of their brightly-colored glory, "Woah…"

"Yeah… My mom did this when I visited Japan with her to get me a better look over a set of palace gates."

"You traveled around with your mom?"

"Yeah. Well, not in time or anything… But around the world. She was a photographer," she answered, enjoying the new, bright gold that her glasses allowed her.

"Hey, look!" Sherman exclaimed, turning and balancing along another branch as he heard the rushing water.

"Haha, wait just a second!" Rigby laughed, following after the boy as he hopped down from the tree and towards the large river nearby. "Looks like there's another temple over there!"

"We can cross this!" Sherman pointed over to a fallen log, and it was at that point Rigby felt something rise in her stomach—Something that wasn't relating to overeating, for once.

"Maybe we could just look at it from here, Sherman. Sherman!" she called out.

"It's okay, it's dry," he replied, taking a few steps on the log, balancing his sandaled feet on it. Rigby bent down to four paws, and started her own balanced walk across it, her throat drying at the rushing water underneath her.

A bird fluttering its wings in the distance was enough to make the cat, already on edge, jump forward, bumping into the boy, and this in turn led to Sherman tumbling off of the rock and into the water.

"No!" she gasped, watching him flail in the waters that were deeper than she'd even imagined. "S-Sherman! Hold on!"

She paced back and forth along the log, watching him struggle while she struggled with the river under her feet.

It was with a cringe that she leapt off of the log and plunged into the water after him—Just in time to recall that she couldn't swim.

The water burned Rigby's throat and nose. She felt a slight pinch against her neck, followed by her head raising up from the water. She was battered occasionally by something she couldn't place at the time, but that she later realized was a paw in the midst of a doggie paddle.

The next thing she recalled, after blacking out, was the sound of coughing. This was followed by a wet nose pressed against hers, and a pair of paws compressing her chest. And unmistakable smell of wet dog, vaguely covered over with cologne…

Rigby pushed the dog off of her by his shoulders and started her own coughing, while Peabody rose in his drenched blue kimono, wringing out the corner of it.

"Are you both all right?" he asked, having wrung out the hem to his satisfaction.

"I think so…" Sherman said, followed by another cough.

"Good…" Peabody's expression then hardened as he turned to Rigby. "Now explain to me WHAT happened?! How did he get in the water? How did you get in the water!? Do you KNOW what could have happened?"

"Mr. Peabody, it wasn't—"

"You're right," Rigby stood shakily. "I'm sorry. I should have paid more attention. I thought we could get across that log and I totally misjudged it."

"I can't tell you how correct that assumption is! I just…" Peabody made a growl as he paced back and forth. "That was COMPLETELY irresponsible!"

"Yeah, I know. Sorry," Rigby's eyes fell to the ground.

"Sherman, come on… Let's get you dried off," Peabody helped the boy to his feet, rubbing the child's shoulders to stimulate at least a bit of warmth as they passed the cat. The dog gave what she could swear was another low warning growl, and stormed past her.

They came up to a main road, Sherman still coughing occasionally, when they heard the stomping of hoof prints against the dirt. Atop a straining horse was a man dressed in a dark kimono, a young boy clutching to his back. As they hurried down the path, the young boy turned upon seeing Sherman, and threw a wrapped package to him. The boy stumbled forward upon taking hold of it, and gingerly unwrapped it, revealing an ornate gold mask.

"I'm sorry! It's for my son's sake!" shouted the man who rode the horse.

"…Mr. Peabody, who was that?"

"Why that, Sherman, would be Ishikawa Goemon and his son. Ishikawa was known as Japan's Robin Hood in the sixteenth century, adopting the life of a—"

"THIEF!" barked several armored men as they, too, ran on horseback. They stopped short at the cat, dog, and boy, though, catching a glimmer of the golden mask.

"That's right," Peabody sighed, seemingly unfazed by the swords surrounding them. "I do believe we've been made his patsy."


	7. Tanko Bushi

Thank you as always for the reading, reviews, and favorites.

Rigby sat in her own corner of the cell, seemingly a mile away from Peabody and the sleeping boy leaning against him. Sherman had finally passed out from the exhaustion of the whole affair, including being led into town—And straight into a prison with the artist and genius.

"Tell me the worse we'll get is a fine…" Rigby asked, doing her best to muster a laugh.

Peabody lifted up his glasses and rubbed his eyes, "I suppose at this rate I may have to call in a sick day for him in school."

"So do you always get in this much trouble?"

"Usually it's a bit more," Peabody admitted, gently sliding Sherman off of him and onto the floor, and then walking over to the wooden door in front of them. "Hrm."

"I'm… I'm sorry again."

"As am I for the outburst. But… You have to understand that the level for devotion is deep enough where it's the only reasonable reaction."

"You love him."

"…Yes… Miss Rigby, how much do you weigh?"

"E-Excuse me?" she stood and walked over to the door.

"How much do you weigh?"

"Nineteen pounds?"

Peabody raised an eyebrow at this and scanned her up and down.

"…All right! Twenty-one pounds! Why?"

"This should work, then," Peabody started to undo the belt around his robe, and Rigby immediately lurched back.

"Your kid's in here! What do you think you're—" Rigby attempted to swat the dog away as he reached up and plucked out a hairpiece from atop her head. He assessed the weight of this long metal hairpiece in his hand, and then attached it to his belt and stood back. He began to swing the hairpiece attached to the belt, and then threw it, testing the hold of it with a few good tugs.

"You're going to be the one to climb up."

"Why me?"

"You're the smallest on in the group, and you have no collarbone given that you're a cat, so it makes it easier for you to wiggle your way through. Take this belt up and over. The hallway's twenty feet down to the guard. You can quietly sneak down, grab the keys, and work your way back down."

"I-I can't do that!"

"I believe in you," replied the dog, holding out the belt sash to her. Rigby looked at it for a moment, sighed, and grabbed onto it, working her way up to the opening. With a little bit of squeezing and a lot of regrets over snacking in the past, she made it out, yelping as she hit the ground on the other side.

"Rigby!" Peabody whispered in a hiss. "Are you—"

"I'm fine!" she muttered, rising shakily. "I'm fine…"

She dusted off the kimono, rotated her shoulder so the one fallen sleeve of it fell back into place, and began the quiet as could be walk down the hall to the napping guard. The black and white cat shirked away as she heard footsteps, and without too much thought, she rolled herself up in a ball next to the said sleeping guard, so that all that was visible was the fabric of her kimono.

"Yoshizaki fell asleep again…" grumbled one of the guards to the other as they loomed over the napping man in the corner. "…Hey, I think that's his lunch there… See what the lazy lout brought."

"Right," Rigby stiffened as she felt herself being lifted by the obi. For a moment she faced the stunned guard, and then drew out all of her claws.

Peabody heard a yowling and screams from the other side of the door, and Sherman immediately bolted upright from his sleep.

"Mr. Peabody! What's going on!?"

"Nothing, Sherman, nothing—Just working on plan "B", seeing as how "A" had only a 67% success rate and from the sound of it took the A Train out of here," Peabody answered, having, while Rigby walked down the hall, successfully disassembled a wooden bucket, laid the pieces from it out against the door, and stuck the explosive substance he'd formed from little more than dried persimmon and some scrapings from the wall of the cell that he'd managed to find.

He took two rocks he'd picked up from the floor of the cell and poised them in above the wood kindling, "Sherman, I'd step back."

"All right…" the boy did so cautiously, "Mr. Peabody—"

"Now cover your ears," Peabody instructed, and the boy did so, shuddering and shirking away from the explosion that followed. Peabody immediately took the boy by the hand and hopped over the rubble, Sherman stumbling along the way.

"Rigby!" Peabody called out to the cat, who had been cornered by the three guards on one side of the hall. "Sherman! Go! I'll be right there!"

"Wait, what!?"

"Just go to the WABAC! We'll be there in a moment!" Peabody called out, rushing down the hall.

Sherman could have sworn he heard a loud "thud" as he ran away from the cells, ducking out of the guards and into the shadows. The boy then sighed in relief as he watched the dog and cat running side-by-side down the hall—No guards seemingly following after them.

"Sherman, hurry out of here now—I dislodged a beam and these gentlemen are going to find themselves trapped in a moment! Because it's not a Peabody visit without bringing the house down!"

"I don't get it!" called the boy as he ran alongside the two, tripping moments before making it out of the structure. Peabody spun around in the dirt, turning the same time Rigby did, and both shared a glance for only a split second before either grabbing Sherman by an arm and leading him the final steps out of the small jail before the roof fell.

"…They'll be fine," Peabody assured the pair, self-consciously closing his robe with his left hand as he stood amidst the destruction. "We should be off now."

"Yeah," both the boy and the cat nodded quickly in agreement.

Rigby managed to avoid the two for the rest of the evening, mainly sequestering herself off in her room with a sketchbook. She cringed at the low knock on the door, but was relieve to find it was merely Sherman, now dressed for bed.

"Your dad sent you?"

"No… Can I…?"

"Sure," she patted the bed and continued her sketching. "It's your house, after all. Can't sleep after everything?"

"I guess not…" Sherman climbed atop the bed, tilting his head as he looked over the cat's shoulder, "So you can do other styles, too?"

"My mom taught me how… Well, kind of. I learned a lot of my own, too."

"Like Mr. Peabody when he was little. Well, without the mom… But he taught himself a lot of stuff! Hey, is that supposed to be me?"

"Yeah—What do you think?" she offered him the sketchbook, which he took and started to flip through, page by page.

"My teeth look kinda funny… Who's that?" he asked, pointing to a colored sketch of a blonde woman seated on a sandy beach, laughing and barely keeping a straw hat on top of her head.

"That was my mom…"

"Your mom… Was a human?"

"Well don't look so shocked!" Rigby laughed. "I'd imagine that wouldn't surprise you!"

"But you still act a lot like a cat."

"And you act a lot like a boy."

"Where is your mom, anyway?"

"She… Well, one day a long time ago, we were on a boat headed to Bhutan, and it got a little stormy and… You know. She's somewhere she's happy," Rigby allowed for Sherman to hand her back the sketchpad, and she resumed her drawing with charcoal, not minding the smudging on her paws.

Sherman knew that look on her face, and his voice fell, "…Sorry..."

"…It's okay…" Rigby's answered in a hush, and her sketching became slower.

"Are you upset that my dad yelled?"

"I'm upset I let you do that without thinking. I guess I'm just sort of used to looking out for only me," Rigby admitted with a shrug.

"Thanks… For taking the fall for that. And for helping out in the jail."

"You're a good kid. You deserve a break every now and again. Just… Don't give your dad as much trouble. He's already white, don't make him go gray," she leaned over and ruffled his hair. "Now get to bed, or I'm sure he'll have me made into a violin by the morning."

"Goodnight!" Sherman called out after hopping down from the bed. He ran to the doorway, only to run into his father. Sherman rubbed his chest, whereas Peabody rubbed his muzzle after colliding with the boy.

"I was just coming to look for you. Come on now, Sherman. It's time for bed."

"Right!" the little boy said, and rushed down to his room, Peabody shutting the door of the guest room.

"Now, we've had a long day, so if you want to sleep an extra five minutes before school I won't blame you," Peabody said as he adjusted the sheets of Sherman's bed.

"Hey… Mr. Peabody… Can… I tell you something? And you promise you won't be mad?"

"I promise."

"I started climbing across the log. She told me not to, but… I didn't listen," the boy said quietly. Peabody stopped the preparation of his son's bed, and after a moment of thought, pulled back the sheets, signaling for his son to hop into bed. "She jumped in after me."

"Thank you for admitting that to me. I'll have to have a talk with her," said Peabody as he tucked the sheets around his son and leaned in to hug him. "Have you thought anymore about what you might want for your birthday?"

"Yeah… I think I might want a mom. Rigby had one. They seem nice. And you won't have to work so hard all of the time that way!" the boy said after a moment's thought, his eyebrows furrowed as he looked up to the ceiling. Peabody immediately stopped his tucking in the sheets.

"I…. see. Well… We'll see," he brushed aside some of his son's hair, and then switched off the lamp to the room. "Goodnight, Sherman."

"Goodnight, Mr. Peabody!" Sherman replied with a yawn.

"…That's a much taller order than a bicycle," Peabody whispered to himself, slapping his forehead and leaning against the wall of the hallway. He never thought he'd miss the walls of the Kyoto prison.


	8. Another Heart Breaks

I want to make it clear that I was watching this show when ALF was popular and it never occurred to me in all of those years that Mr. Peabody had a canon first name. Apparently he does, though!

"Um… Mr. Peabody….?"

"Yes, Sherman?"

"This isn't yogurt you put in my lunch," the boy reached into his brown lunch bag and pulled out an orange plastic can of cat food.

"That certainly isn't!" the dog attempted to laugh this off, tossing it absently back into the fridge and pulling out a strawberryogurt. "Have a good day at school!"

"Morning…" Rigby yawned on her way out of her own guest room, dressed in an older cotton bathrobe, and reached into the refrigerator, pulling out the same can of cat food and beginning her search for a spoon.

"There's no way… Not when she does that," Peabody whispered to himself as he watched her go about eating it as though it were indeed a yogurt. He cringed with every bite she took after her search for a spoon ended in victory, knowing the exact process that went into making such things.

"Thanks for lunch, I'll say hi to Penny's mom!"

"You tell her… I said hello!" Peabody called out as Sherman bolted out of the apartment, lunch bag and backpack in tow. Peabody's arm, from where it had been waving, fell as he turned to the cat, who looked up at him from the newspaper with a spoon in her mouth.

"I only started eating it because I was a starving artist and found out I liked it," she shrugged through a mouthful of the stuff. "Not a cat thing. Well, maybe. But it's cat food. It has my name on it!"

"I see. I… Believe I owe you an apology. Sherman explained what happened to me the other night. I'm sorry that I assumed otherwise."

"He's not in trouble, is he?" she took another spoonful of the stuff, and Peabody shook his head, doing anything but looking anything towards her.

"I think he more than knows what he did wrong. Thank you for trying to save him. I can't tell you how much I appreciate it."

"He's a good kid. Scrappy, but good," she chuckled.

"I have to make a trip to my library, so please excuse me," he stepped back out of the kitchen, shuddering to himself along the way as he heard her scrape against the can of cat food.

The first thing he went through was his book of contacts, flipping through any names that popped out to him.

"Married… Married… From the seventeenth century… Hun… Hates children… Sainted, so that'd only make it awkward down the line… Married…" he leaned back in his chair and thought to himself, wishing he'd poured himself a bloody Mary before beginning the entire affair. "When did all of this happen…?"

He thought back to the cat food eater in the next room, and tapped his pen on the now-lengthy list of now scratched out names, "…Sherman does seem to like her… It'd be worth it to try. For him."

Within minutes the dog, admittedly to himself a bit rusty on dealing with such things, had a stack lined up next to his leather sitting chair. He skimmed book after book, taking note from the images and advice he could.

"Shared interests... Discussion topics… Interesting news stories… This should do…" Peabody muttered to himself as he flipped through a stack of flashcards while walking down the hall and down to his elevator. Riding a floor down, he opened it and found the black and white cat busy at work on the floor, flicking specks of yellow and blue paint on another large canvas while not minding the color that coated her.

"Should I go?" she asked, looking left and right as she noticed the stare from the dog.

"No, no, you're hard at work. And you look so…" a quick glanced down at a list of complimentary adjectives; nothing fit. Absolutely nothing, "…Hard at work!"

"…All right…."

"Would you like to, if it's possible… Go out for dinner this evening?" Peabody asked, clenching the note cards just a bit too tightly. "As an apology for how I acted earlier."

"The cat food bothered you that bad?" she laughed.

"No! No! Nothing about your being a cat bothers me, I assure you. I just thought it'd be a nice date."

"Nice what?" Rigby's head shot up from the canvas.

"Nice date to go out. It's… Bastille Day. It's the proper way to celebrate."

"I thought that wasn't until July."

"French-Canadian Bastille Day," Peabody replied quickly, flashing a pointy-toothed grin.

"…All right. I mean, if you—"

"Wonderful. It will be formal wear. Please be ready at seven," the dog's posture was stiff as he turned and walked out, and Rigby stood there for a moment before shrugging and resuming her work, not knowing the genius had been reduced to groaning and cursing to himself while riding back up the elevator.

"A babysitter? Come on, Mr. Peabody… I think I'm old enough. I'm almost nine," Sherman rolled around on his father's bed while the dog ran a comb through the fur atop his head and then adjusted the red bow tie he was wearing in the mirror. This was in addition to a light blue shirt and a darker blue jacket.

"It's just for a night, Sherman. Now, honestly—How do I look?"

"Kinda like you're gonna puke."

"Perfect! A few of the books said that would be normal. Slightly increased pulse, voice cracking, increased clumsiness…. No sweaty palms, but I'd need them for that to happen. It's every hallmark of—"

"Puberty?"

"That too," Peabody replied, still fussing with his bow tie. "She should be ready in about twenty minutes. At least according to resea—"

"Ready!" bellowed a voice from outside.

"Then again, there are always those who break the bell curve…" Peabody murmured. "Sherman, wish me luck!"

"No staying out past curfew!" was what Sherman answered with warningly, sprawled out on his father's bed still, letting his head hang over the edge of it.

"Now…" Peabody immediately walked up to the babysitter, a disinterested teenage girl with a mouth full of metal braces and a cell phone seemingly glued to her hand. "Sherman has ancient Mayan for half an hour tonight, an hour of violin lessons, time for a brief snack and some recreational mathematics, and then bedtime by… My…"

"I hope this is fancy enough," Rigby stood there in a sleeveless green gown, sequined on the top and then remaining fitted all the way down. "I won't lie… I ran back to my place to get this. It's an old bridesmaid dress. I just figured it would do after you told me it was "formal"."

"You look stunning," the dog answered, and, much to his surprise, very much meant it.

"Okay, sure," came the babysitter's delayed response, and without even looking up from her phone, she held out an expectant hand. Peabody laid a few crumpled bills in the hand of the babysitter, and led Rigby out by the arm. He looked over his shoulder once more to see Sherman, from his room, giving him a thumbs up.

"Allow me," the genius opened the door to the building on their way out, and Rigby walked out after a moment of pausing.

"This is a lot different than you from yesterday."

"Really now?"

"I sort of thought you were going to eat me!"

"I definitely thought about it!" Peabody blurted out. This was followed by a strained laugh as he reached for the handle of the limo that had pulled up for both of them. "Joke. That was a joke. Right this way, please."

"…Righttt…." Rigby climbed in, and Peabody took a seat beside her, making sure to remain the proper distance from her on the seat—Not far enough to seem incredibly distance, but not close enough to seem presumptuous.

Now was the time for small talk, according to several articles he'd perused.

"So you… Go by Rigby mainly?"

"Well, I'm Kim to a lot of people."

"Kim. That's got a nice, simple ring to it."

"How about you? Anyone just call you "Mister"?"

"Oh, that's just a title, it's not my complete name," Peabody chuckled. "My first name, it's Hector."

"Hector?... Hector? I just kind of figured it was a name like "Mr. Buttons". No one ever calls you that?"

"Sherman tried once, as a way to get under my skin, and only once."

"Hector. It's not bad. But I guess I can see why you'd want to be Peabody," she sat back in her seat, her paws folded over each other.

It was nice, the way she said it, thought the dog as he tried to hide the wagging of his tail.

"I thought you'd have to live in a palace to eat in a place like this!" Rigby laughed with disbelief as she wandered into the restaurant with her companion.

"We're preparing to open up a French satellite in mid-January," Peabody walked with his arms folded behind his back, occasionally looking over to the dumbfounded express on the artist's face.

Rigby stopped looking at the frescoes illuminated by the candlelit walls long enough to stare at the dog, "This… This is yours?"

"I designed the menu myself, too. And the interior design."

"That's… Unbelievable…" her arms fell to her sides, and Peabody thought to reach out for a moment, only to be taken by surprise by one of the chefs, a large man in a classic white hat and apron, who ran up to them excitedly and ushered them to a back table.

"It was a fun challenge. I'm proud of most of the things on there, but I really recommend the mussels." said Peabody as they were led to their table.

"Where do you find time for it all?" she asked as he slid in her chair for her.

"Well, there's a lot of balancing to do… But we do those things for what we care about, don't we?" he took his own seat and took the initiative to order a bottle of wine for them, in French, as the waiter came to the table.

"I'm going to find something you're bad at, yet," Rigby chuckled as the wine was poured for them.

"Bad at doing things badly, so said Mr. Jefferson," Peabody raised the glass to her and grinned.

A lull in the conversation—a perfect opportunity for getting to know one another better, he'd read in one of the books.

"So how did your mother go about finding you, if you don't mind my asking?"

"Adoption center in Akron. For humans. I ran away from the pet one… They found me drawing on the walls, she went to photograph me for a local newspaper after the news stations showed up… I guess she felt bad that the news had made it into a circus... Wanted to try to protect me from some of it," Rigby answered, sipping her own wine. "How'd you even get out of the system?"

"Basketball and engineering scholarship to Harvard," he replied, and Rigby choked her wine down, hard.

"My mom tried everything to get me to get into a school… You must have been really something for them to accept you!"

"I have a dogged tenacity…"

"…Can I ask you something and have an honest answer?"

"I'm always honest, even if it's not something a person necessarily wants to hear. It's vital to the development of anyone to receive constructive feedback."

"Why me? I mean, I must seem like the most uneducated hick this side of Jersey to you. The closest I've come to any sort of degree is when I got certified in CPR—And even then I just barely passed!"

"Education can come from anywhere. I've taught myself plenty on my own. There are many things that don't necessarily take away from you as a person, and that includes education."

"…I think that's one of the nicest things anyone's ever said…. I gotta admit, when I first met you in person…. I thought you were kind of… What's the word for "snob" but bigger?"

"Pretentious," the dog answered.

"Yeah, that's the one! Well, I still think you are… But you're also probably one of the most humane people in this town…"

"…Why, thank you," was all he could muster.

"Hey… I know we just got here, but… Can we maybe go somewhere else? I kinda feel like we're being stared at. It's giving me some serious flashbacks..."

"We most likely are," Peabody sipped the wine that had been brought to them. "You get used to it after a while. This is nothing compared to when Sherman was a baby. Let's just say that there's a reason we don't watch that much television."

"Well, you may be used to it, but there's a reason I keep to myself in my home."

He watched Rigby shift worriedly in her seat, and then nodded and hopped off of his chair, "Shall we? Did you have an idea of where you'd like to go?"

"One, I guess, actually…" said the cat meekly, gratefully taking the hand extended to her.

"I have to admit… The last place I'd imagine you'd want to go to would be near water," Peabody waved the limo off, and they were left alone on the shore of the beach.

"I used to love the ocean. It reminds me of Fiji."

"Fiji! What a wonderful place… I taught there a semester at a local school. Such wonderful children. A bit mischievous, but aren't they all?"

"Of course," she chuckled, "So I'm guessing that's what you're going to go back to doing when Sherman goes off to college?"

"Maybe. I know I have many years before that, but I've been evaluating what I might possibly do, in all honesty. I went to college at two, but I realize Sherman's a human so it's different, so he might not be able to go until thirteen, fourteen… There are so many options, but at the same time…"

"Don't know how you'd go back?"

"..That's right."

"Well, hey, if you ever need a dance partner, let me know!" said Rigby. "I think a few more lessons and I'll be caught up to you."

"I don't think I'd mind tutoring you," Peabody answered. It must have been the tone, because Rigby's eyes widened a bit as he said this, and her walk down the beach slowed a bit.

As they walked back, now towards a taxi, Rigby was silent, staring ahead. Peabody's mind started to go over the multiple reasons for this… Falling short each time or coming to an inconclusive answer.

"Did I say something?" he finally asked when they were halfway back to the penthouse, finding he'd exhausted all other options.

"Oh? No. I'm just tired I guess," Rigby laughed this off, and continued her looking out the window of her side of the cab, enjoying all of the new, vibrant neon signs that filled the city and passed them.

It was when they got to the penthouse that Peabody, having opened and closed the door for Rigby, reached down to a potted plant, noticing one of the flowers in bloom, in spite of the recently frigid winter.

Perfect, though the dog. Both spontaneous and to the point. He couldn't have done better had he staged it all.

Sherman was fast asleep, and the babysitter left with more than a shrug, leaving a half-eaten pizza out on the table.

"Can I make you something to eat? A drink?" asked the dog as the cat walked towards her room.

She shook her head absently, "What? No, no thanks… I... I had a really great time tonight."

"As did I," the dog shifted on his back paws for a moment, and finally revealed the flower. "I was wondering if you'd maybe consider—"

"I've got a boyfriend. I'm sorry!" Rigby rattled off quickly, and slammed the door behind her.

"…And another element has been thrown into the equation," the dog muttered, and stood there for a moment, by himself, in the hallway, tail lowered.

It'd been a good many years since he'd faced any rejection at all. He'd forgotten what it felt like…

And then he remembered.

It stung.


	9. The News

I had to fix some minor formatting issues. Apologies for that. Also, another stretch of a title.

"Mornin', Mr. Peabody!" Sherman exclaimed happily as he bounded out of his room the following morning after Peabody's outing with Rigby. "…Everything all right?" the boy's tone quieted as he saw Peabody, a concerned, silent look on his face, puttering around the kitchen.

"Hrm? Oh, yes," the dog lied through a smile, looking up from his cutting board and chopped vegetables briefly.

"How'd it go last night?" the boy's tone dropped to a whisper, and Peabody did his best not to outwardly shudder.

"Urm… It was… Eye-opening. Are you all ready for school, Sherman?"

"Just about!" the boy chirped, taking a bite of the cereal from the bowl that had been poured for him. He slowly turned, feeling the presence upon him, and then noted his father's one paw laid gently on his shoulder. "…Are you sure you're okay?"

"Certainly. Just remembering that I'm grateful we know one another," Peabody answered, quietly slinking off to find his helmet. He ran into the cat in the hallway, both exchanged flinches, and then headed off their opposite ways, her eyes down to the ground and bathrobe practically making her vanish in its bulk. She was grateful for this; vanishing was just what she wanted, then.

"So she's gonna be your mom?" Penny raised her eyebrows as she sat across from Sherman at lunch. "I guess that'll make my mom feel less alone when our dads start talking about golf. But haven't they known each other for only a couple of weeks?"

"Mr. Peabody told me he wanted to adopt me the second he saw me. If you can pick out your son that quick, why can't you pick out your wife?"

"I… Don't know if it works that way, but when you put it that way I guess that makes sense…" Penny thought for a moment. "You're sure that it went well?"

"Yeah, he's been acting all nervous around her, and she's been the same way."

"So like how Jimmy gets around Savannah, or Chris when he talks with me?"

"Yeah, exactly! I-Wait, what?!" Sherman yelped, choking on his sandwich for a moment.

Penny chuckled, "Just kidding. Boy you're touchy."

"NOT funny, Penny!"

"Oh yeah it was! You should've totally seen your face!"

"Come over after school and I'll show you."

"Can't; we're having family game night. I can make it over tomorrow, we don't have school then anything."

"Great! You'll definitely see it then!"

Rigby jumped as she heard the door to the studio open, and pretended not to notice by focusing on dropping lines of paint on her large canvas.

"I was wondering if you wouldn't mind watching Sherman this evening? The regular babysitter got grounded for sneaking out after curfew…" Peabody stood in front of the canvas, his arms behind his back. "I'll only be gone for an hour or two. I have an interview with a news station this evening about a new book I've written."

"Sure," was the only word that came from her as she continued her work, splattering the paint liberally. It was the first time he'd really seen her work with red, he couldn't help but notice.

"…I'm sorry for any miscommunication. The other night. That was presumptuous of me."

"It's fine…" she muttered, and made no other move to do away with the silence between them. The genius turned from the artist, looking over briefly to her from his shoulder once more, and then back to his scooter—It'd be a long drive to the news station.

"It's okay to put the microphone here?" asked the stagehand as she attempted to clip the small microphone to Peabody's bow tie.

"Perfectly fine. Thank you, Angela," Peabody exchanged a smile with the young woman, sipped his coffee, and sat back in his chair. He nodded towards the three hosts and slightly raised his coffee to the three, who were all done up in what he sure was a pound of hairspray and caked makeup. The three chattered amongst themselves, reviewing their notes with one another.

It was the one in the middle, Linda, who finally acknowledged Peabody, "I can't tell you what a pleasure it is to finally get you on our show!" she said to him, leaning forward and grinning.

"Well, my schedule has been a bit busy lately," the lone man amongst the anchors, Ted, grimed as Peabody said this, nearly stifling a chuckle.

"Well don't you worry, we'll make sure you're relaxed and have a great time here!" exclaimed Linda… A bit too cheerfully.

Gina, who sat farthest from him around the round table, adjusted her papers and cleared her throat, "Three… Two… And welcome back to the Evening World! We're here with Renaissance dog Mr. Peabody, who famously took a _bite_ out of_ time_ last year!"

Peabody laughed politely, although this was only a cover for the depressing reminder that this "witty" pun he'd already seen and heard a thousand times would follow him to the grave, "Thank you so much, Gina."

"Before the show, you were talking about your busy life…" Ted shuffled the papers on the desk before him. "Now we realize you've published a new book—"

"Yes, all about the theory of time—"

"And that's terrific! It's a wonder how you've found so much time for so much else lately," Ted grinned, his teeth much too white and straight in his skull. "Rumor has it you've been seen around town with a lucky lady, lately."

Peabody forced himself not to sigh; he was hardly shocked that this would take precedence over a book explaining the theory of time travel, some cheap fodder for a magazine… But it didn't quell the disgust he felt.

"Our sources were telling us it's an underground artist, Kim Rigby," Linda leaned in more, as if finally taking an interest in a subject.

"She is indeed a friend of mine..." said Peabody cautiously, sipping from his coffee mug.

"Is it true you met by crashing into her home?" laughed Gina.

"You have to admit that you two make a little bit of an odd couple," Ted added. "But you have a little bit of a history with unconventional families. How's your son taking this?"

Peabody felt his annoyance rising, pushed up his glasses, and set the coffee down on the black glass table as gently as he could muster, "I have a strict policy of not bringing him up in these things. I'm not going to waiver on that after nearly a decade."

"I think it's really a great statement you're making with this," Gina chimed in. Peabody barely heard this, as he had heard it already, so many times before, and he had since pulled out his phone.

"One can only imagine what's in next for such a unique family!" Linda exclaimed.

"Can I ask what you're doing, Mr. Peabody?" but Gina was only greeted with a slightly raised paw and a mutter.

"Just working on a business transaction," murmured the dog, not looking up from his phone all the while. "Ah. There we go! It'd appear as though I'd just bought this station. How delightful, I've always meant to get more into working with television. I just don't think there's enough in the way of educational programming anymore. I think it'd be safe to say we could go to a commercial, now?"

"Is... Is he serious?" Linda's voice fell, losing all of its fake cheer, and she turned to the direct off stage. "Larry...?"

The stunned directer only nodded, his face a dull, sick shade of white.

The three anchors blinked, laughed nervously, and looked about for help. Ted was finally the one who cued the commercial, immediately getting up from his seat and storming off.

"I'm not working for a fleabag," muttered the news anchor. "Larry! I'm not working for a someone who uses chew toys! You're down an anchor!"

"Ladies. I wish you a good day. I'm afraid I can't stay any longer—I have a son to tuck in to bed. I hope you'll join me for a meeting we're going to have on Tuesday. I think after this interview we're going to have to review a few policies."

With a self-satisfied smile, the dog wandered off the set, phone in one paw while waving the other to the two remaining anchors.

"You bought a TV station… Just like… That…" Rigby was sipping from a once-full bottle at the bar as the elevators to the door opened and Peabody walked into his home, a small smile still on his face.

"You saw that? I thought you didn't watch television."

"I'm not that stuck up. I turn it on every now and again… That was... Amazing."

"Thank you… Now that you're out here, am I allowed to make a formal apology?"

"I... I just... What I've got to say is-"

"Mr. Peabody?" came the weak, tired voice of Sherman from his bedroom. The dog sighed and quietly entered the room, allowing the lights to remain dimmed.

"I'm here, Sherman. Another bad dream?"

The boy only stirred underneath his sheets a bit, not quite nodding.

"All right then. Don't worry, I'll stay here until you're asleep."

"…You promise?"

"You know I always keep my word," Peabody looked over and noted the shadow in the doorway, which was given away by a swishing tail. Rigby cringed upon being caught, but Peabody nodded, signaling for her to also enter the room.

"I… Just figured if there was anything bad in here, I'd be able to see it. I can see in the dark… And all…" she cleared her throat, and took a seat at the edge of the bed. "…I'm a night owl, anyway."

Sherman's worry seemingly vanished away from his face, and he slid down into his bed, shutting his eyes, "Mr. Peabody… Penny's coming tomorrow. That's okay? Right?"

"Of course."

"I figured the four of us could all go somewhere in the WABAC," the boy turned over in bed and yawned.

"Yeah… That'd be fun," Rigby rubbed one of her arms, and stood after hearing the telltale snoring of the boy.

"…Thank you, Miss Rigby."

"No problem, Hector," she said, and left. Peabody, meanwhile, stretched and decided to curl up with his boy in the bed.

It was about three when Sherman's kicking around in bed finally got to the dog—After one too many hits to the head from flailing limbs, he trudged back towards his room, but not before passing his library. Overcome with curiosity of phrases that had stuck to his thoughts since the date the previous night before, he wandered into the library, sitting down in a leather rolling chair and switching on his computer.

"There's more than one way to travel into the past…" he reminded himself, yawning and clicking open a link to an article.

Rigby hadn't been joking about the press coverage, he saw after a few kick read-throughs—What had been largely forgotten it seemed, back then, had sent media flocking from all around the world. He's been but a pup himself, so there was no wonder that he'd missed hearing about it.

One picture Peabody focused on in particular was a blonde woman, camera in one hand, clutching onto a smaller, fuzzier version of the cat he'd come to know, wrapped up in a blue blanket as she stormed out of an orphanage.

"You saw a bit of yourself in here, didn't you?" Peabody wondered aloud as he took in the photograph, recognizing the emotions that the human woman must have felt in that moment.


	10. Dog Days are Over

"Puppy love…" Peabody read the front page headline with disdain as he sipped his coffee. It wasn't the top story, as had been when he'd adopted Sherman… But the headline, along with a photograph from the restaurant, was on a bottom-right article on the front page of the news.

"The paper?" Rigby rolled her eyes as she walked out, toothbrush still in her mouth. "I'm getting calls from my friends and family now."

"I thought you didn't own a phone."

The home phone rang, and Rigby cringed, "…They somehow have your number."

"It must have been leaked..." grumbled Peabody, folding the paper before slamming it on the table.

"Good morning!" Sherman burst out, and Peabody immediately handed the paper to Rigby, who, unspeaking, shoved it in her bathrobe.

"Sherman, why aren't you dressed for school?"

"I don't have it! It's a teacher work day, remember Mr. Peabody?"

"Another one? What are my tuition checks going to, exactly? All right, very well. I'll set up a study plan for you… We'll start with intermediate Mandarin and then perhaps fit in some Tennessee Williams before lunch."

"Or maybe just go to a park," Rigby muttered to herself, quiet enough for Sherman to ignore, but loud enough for the dog with superior hearing to catch and tilt his head ever. So. Slightly.

"Penny's coming over early!" Sherman exclaimed. "I'm gonna finish getting ready."

Peabody sipped his coffee again after Sherman had left the room "…You really don't have to give your opinion on something I've been doing for nearly a decade."

"I'm going to go get my smile and sweater on," Rigby grumbled, resuming the brushing of her teeth and heading back towards the bathroom, groaning at the sound of the phone ringing yet again.

Sherman seemingly didn't notice the distance between the two adults in the WABAC, or the tense frowns on each of their faces. Penny started to say something, but upon seeing the excited look on Sherman's face, decided to keep quiet.

"Where are we going to today, Mr. Peabody?" asked Sherman, practically bouncing up and down in his seat.

"Well, Sherman, I thought that perhaps a visit to see some Vikings would be a fun jaunt!"

"Vikings!? Awesome!"

"Or a bed of broken glass…" Rigby added to herself from her seat, her chin resting lazily on a paw. "Or a volcano. How about just an active volcano?"

"Where's this coming from exactly?" Peabody's voice lowered, and he pulled his seat closer to the cat to speak more privately.

"The phone's ringing off the hook for me since this morning. I have people from when I was a kitten wanting "exclusives". I checked a computer and I'm on there, too. Everywhere!" she answered with a quiet hiss. "You didn't even think about that happening, did you?"

"I didn't think it was going to go the way it did, in all honesty."

"And what DID you think was going to happen?"

"Well, perhaps you would-"

"Of course," she leaned back and laughed. "I'd be just the _littlest_ bit impressed and that would be that, right?"

"Not in the slightest, I—"

"I spent years trying to keep low, which isn't easy for a talking cat. I'm on the cover of "People" this week!" her voice raised a bit now, and Sherman exchanged nervous glanced with Penny. "First my house gets wrecked, now my life's going the same way… And now you think nothing of going to… Scandinavia at its sharpest and pointiest!"

"I wouldn't let any harm come to anyone."

"Oh yeah, just tear open another portal."

Sherman started to speak up, "Actually, that was—"

"And you can't put a safety lock on this? You can buy them for toilets!" Rigby's voice had raised even more. "I got out of being known as a weirdo, into being respected as an artist, and now I'm back to being a sideshow!"

"You're just a bit stressed. It's understandable; we'll straighten this all out later."

"Dogs are supposed to protect people. Guard dogs, police dogs… Those cartoon mountain dogs with the little barrel attached to their collars—You're good at everything but that!" Rigby was now at a shouting level. "I think I finally figured it out. I figured out the one thing you're bad at. You're a bad dog!"

The air from the WABAC seemed to have left the room. Peabody's jaw clenched, as did his grip on the handles of the WABAC's steering wheel. Rigby's chest was heaving in the silence, her face in a scowl equaling the dog's.

"…I don't think the date went well," Penny said in a stunned hush.

"No I don't think so either," added Sherman with a shake of the head.

"Do you want to know why I went to Fiji and all of those places?! Because no one bothered us there!" she shouted. "I never wanted to be bothered, I never wanted to be in danger of… Vikings, samurai, or anything like that!"

"That's ENOUGH," Peabody broke his silence in just as equal a shout. As he did this, his paws slammed down onto the console. This left the WABAC lurching and spinning out of control, and the four went tumbling.

Peabody finally managed to grip onto the console and steady it, attempting to jerk it out of the wormhole the WABAC had traveled into but finding it was no use.

"Where are we going?!" Penny cried.

"I don't know, but we're going there fast!" Peabody answered. "Brace yourselves!"

After sailing through the wormhole, the WABAC sputtered until coming to a halt, letting the four inside tumble about. The window in the darkened WABAC was now facing upwards on the ship's dock, so that Peabody could see the fluttering white and red flag with the Union Jack placed on the top left.

"Where are we, Mr. Peabody?"

"Most likely headed towards the Galapagos Islands, Sherman. The Galapagos."

"Mr. Darwin! Mr. Darwin!" Sherman was the first to run off of the rowboat that led them to the sandy coast of the island. The young, brown-haired man looked up from the journal he'd been writing in and then lit up upon recognizing the boy.

"Sherman!?" he immediately set aside his journal and rose, allowing for the little boy to fall into his arms. He lifted him up a bit and laughed. "It IS you! You're getting so tall! This must mean your father's here, too! And some visitors!"

Penny was taking a photograph of a seal nearby that allowed her to do so without little movement or struggle. Rigby remained on the small boat, her head lowered, as Peabody sat across from her, shooting daggers.

"…You can't stay in here…" Peabody's expression softened as he recognized the nervousness of the cat, her claws dug into the sides of the small boat as she sat in it. He rose from his spot in the boat and hopped out, and offered a hand to her.

"If you wanted to throw me to sharks I wouldn't blame you right now," she answered. "I didn't mean—"

"I know," the dog replied. "We all say things. Now come on."

She looked hesitantly into water that the dog was knee-deep in, and she started to rise from the boat and climb out, only the tumble out when she'd nearly made it, falling on top of Peabody and causing them both to fall into the ocean.

"They're kind of dating. Maybe. We don't know. I'm Penny. Nice to meet you!" the girl held out her hand to Darwin, who with some amusement took it and kissed it briefly while the dog and cat bickered all their way out of the water, Rigby wringing out her skirt.

Darwin had drawn a fire for the group as the sun set of the islands, poking away at a large and lazy lizard that wandered too close for the comfort of Penny and Sherman. They had been joined by an equally-young captain of the ship, FitzRoy.

"What are you doing, Penny?" Peabody raised an eyebrow as she turned to him with her phone, snapping a photo that included both him and the ship in the distance.

"Learning about coincidence," she answered, showing the photo off to Sherman, and pointing out the name of the ship to Sherman—The HMS Beagle. The boy laughed at this and snorted, and Mr. Peabody glanced over and gave a huff.

"I am not amused, for the record…"

"That's okay, we are," Penny chuckled.

"I have to say it's nice you've taken on female company, my friend," said Darwin to Peabody, just before swigging his canteen. "Books are wonderful, but companionship… That's a void impossible to fill."

"That's very true, Charles," said the dog quietly.

"You're married?" FitzRoy spoke, and Rigby choked on the water she'd been sipping. Peabody shooed away one of the iguanas with a stick and then turned back to FitzRoy.

"Not yet," Penny said with a sigh and a roll of the eyes.

"That's enough, Penny," Peabody pointed towards her.

"Well, I'm a captain…" said FitzRoy quietly, only to be ignored by the others around the fire. "I could probably—"

"Charles, I'm going to need a bit of help making some repairs to the WABAC. They don't seem as bad as last time," Peabody explained, rubbing his eyes. "But I will need a hand. Would you be wiling to help?"

"Of course you can count of me," Darwin replied, and jumped at the sight of a hissing iguana, mere inches from him. "…I say we talk about this more on the boat."

Rigby had managed to find a few scraps of paper, and was in the midst of drawing by candlelight as she was curled up, her dress having dried a while ago.

"Do you really think my dad's bad?"

"...No," she set aside her charcoal, and scooted so Sherman could take a seat next to her. "Sherman... I'm sorry. There's no excuse for me doing that earlier. Adults make mistakes, too. I'm just sorry you had to see it."

"It's okay. Me and Mr. Peabody had gotten in fights like that, too, sometimes. I know it doesn't mean he doesn't "hold me in a deep regard"."

"I just act out when I'm scared, I guess…" Peabody was about to turn the corner, into in the cabin, warm cup of tea in hand, but stopped as he heard the two speaking, choosing to listen in on this conversation. This wasn't without a small reminder to himself that eavesdropping was wrong... But he couldn't resist.

"What's to be scared of?" the boy snorted.

"Well… I'm used to looking out for myself, not other people. And at this point I'm used to no one looking out for me."

"I didn't know you were a spy on top of everything," Peabody jumped and spun around, and motioned for her to remain quiet.

"Say. Nothing," he whispered, and Penny only brushed aside her hair and gave a self-satisfied smirk.

"It's okay, I don't think he minds looking after you! I mess up a lot, and he always still loves me."

Rigby reached over and patted the boy's head, "You're sweet. He's lucky to have a nice boy like you."

"I know," Sherman chuckled. "And I think you're nice, too."

"...Even with all of that, you still think I'm nice?"

"Yeah. You bring me my lunch even when you're working, you don't think I'm weird, and you try to keep me safe like Mr. Peabody does."

"...Your dad's done a great job. I'll apologize to him again soon as I can, all right? And then I promise I'll get better about how I let things bother me. Maybe you can give me some pointers on dealing with pressure."

"You should totally say something," Penny whispered, nudging the dog in the back.

"Absolutely not. She's made her interests incredibly clear. And aside from that she has a boyfriend."

Penny folded her arms and smiled, "I have a hard time believing that."

"Don't you lampshade me, young lady, I—" Penny answered the beginning of this lecture from Mr. Peabody by pushing him through the doorway. The rattling of the teacup startled both the cat and the boy, and Peabody held it in front of himself while clearing his throat, "Sherman, I brought you some tea from Mr. Darwin. I figured you might enjoy it before bed. Miss Rigby, would you… Care to go for a walk after I put Sherman to bed? I was thinking of rowing one of the boats out to shore and maybe collect some volcanic rock."

"I can tuck myself in, Mr. Peabody. I'm old enough!" the boy hopped to his feet.

"….Are you sure, Sherman?"

"Definitely!"

"All right… But no getting in trouble, you two," he said with a warning on his way out to the room.

Penny and Sherman waited until they were gone before rushing up onto the deck of the ship to discretely watch this unfold.

Rigby looked down at the school of silvery fish reflecting in the moonlight underneath her, and just as quickly shut her eyes and squeezed her paws together.

"I did some research a nigh or two ago… The water aversion you have goes beyond being a cat, correct?" there was a mere, rushed nod and Peabody continued his rowing. "I'll make sure we're there quick. I was a rowing captain at Harvard, after all."

Rigby said nothing, only flinched with every small wave. She managed to get out into the water the second time they were ashore, and she was glad to see the large lizards had seemingly left.

"I know I said it before, but... I'm sorry. And while I'm trying not to be terrible, I should probably tell you that I lied again," she admitted as they started their walk along the shore, and Peabody only raised an eyebrow. "I don't have a boyfriend. Well, I did, but… We broke it off about a month before all of this."

Peabody's head shot up, and his ears perked up.

"I just… I figured out what you were doing, and I didn't know how to react. Because if I ended up liking you more one thing would lead to another and I be someone's mom. And I don't know if I can do that yet..."

"More?" was the one word the dog managed to cling onto. "…You asked "why you" a while back. It's because Sherman seems to like you. And I trust his judgment in people, young as he may be. He's a smart boy when it comes to seeing the good in people, I've found over the years. Better than even myself. You don't have to rush into anything, but… I'd love for him to get to know you better. There's a lot about him to like!"

"Him? Are you sure it's just him you're talking about?"

"Well, of course we'd have to get to know one another better in the process…"

Rigby chuckled, "So… Starting out as friends again, then?"

"I think we still have one good foot," replied the dog as the cat stepped closer, forcing him to back ever-so-slightly into the ocean.

Penny, who was leaning against the railing of the deck, reached over and placed a hand purposefully over Sherman's eyes.

"Ugh, Penny, what're you doing?!"

"You're too young for this."

"I'm only three months younger than you!" he answered, attempting in vain to push her hand away while she smiled slyly.

Meanwhile on the beach, the dog now felt the ocean water against his back paws as the cat leaned in a bit closer to him.

"What are you—"

Rigby, a smile across her face, lifted up one of her hands, revealing a small length of driftwood.

"You wouldn't da—" she threw the driftwood and he took off running, on all fours.

"Sherman told me about that," she explained as he walked back after having caught it, tumbling on his back onto the sand in the process. She removed the driftwood from his mouth and glowered, but the cat only leaned forward, rubbing one of her cheeks against his own. In response, the dog's tail took off wagging.

Sherman gagged from his spot on the boat, and Penny rolled her eyes and turned him away from the deck, leading him back down underneath.

"What did you think was going to happen?" Penny snorted.

"It's still gross," replied Sherman in a grumble.

"Are you thinking head back now?" Rigby had linked arms with the dog, and Peabody looked out onto the beach, his smile gone and his frown deepened.

"…The air pressure's changed…" he said ominously. Rigby gripped onto his arm tighter at the news of this. "We need to get back. Now."

As they rushed back to the boat, the wind was already beginning to pick up.


	11. If You Want the Rainbow

This is the last chapter for now—Take a look at the author's notes at the end if you want some more information, though! Also let me know thoughts on a sequel. It may happen, it may take some time… But as of now I have some interest in doing one.

"Mr. FitzRoy, I think you should get up here!" Peabody called out after he and the cat had rushed back up onto the deck of the ship. "We're going to need to get the WABAC secured… And we're going to need to reef those sails, if we're not too late already."

"What do you need my help with?" Rigby called out over the increasing winds and sounds of feet rushing up the stairs.

"Help me steer. I'm going to need all of your extra weight!" Peabody called out as he rushed to the wheel.

"…So we're really going to start this with talking about my weight?" she snapped as she climbed atop the wheel on all four paws, and used her claws to dig into the wheel and keep balance.

"It's not—Oh, just move it forward!"

"On it!"

"Mr. Peabody, what's going on?!" Sherman asked through the heavy winds as he ran up with Penny and their friend. Darwin stood behind to two children, a hand on either of their shoulders as he attempted to maintain both his balance and theirs on the deck. This was becoming increasingly difficult as the rain began to pour down.

"Just a mild storm—Definitely NOT a hurricane! Sherman, you and Penny go downstairs with Charles and attempt to secure everything you can down. We're going to need a few members of the crew to also secure the WABAC."

"I want to help up here!" Sherman protested.

"You'll be an even bigger one down there!" Rigby chimed in as she rushed forward atop the wheel, losing her balance for a moment but climbing back up. "You'll be saving Mr. Darwin's work!"

"Come on," Darwin led the children away from the wheel as some of the crew rushed forward and began to throw ropes over the WABC.

"Well done, Miss Rigby!" Peabody called out. "Now… Mr. FitzRoy, when you get a moment!"

"Yes!" FitzRoy slid over, gripping the wood in front of the wheel.

"I must be honest, I'm not certain the direction of this storm, or how we'll faire. What I am certain of is that this is indeed a hurricane in our presence. And I'll need someone to care for my boy in case of a worst-case scenario. Now… Going back to Sherman's liking of you, Rigby, and my certainty that you wouldn't merely want fame or fortune, I'm going to make a calculated risk," Peabody started to turn the spinning wheel to the left, and Rigby quickly turned and started to run the opposite direction. "You're the captain of the ship, so you can marry people, correct, Mr. FitzRoy?"

"What!?" the cat yelped, falling off of her place on the wheel and sitting up from the spot on the deck she'd landed on. "You're asking me to make a commitment during a storm on a boat?! Are you trying to KILL me?!"

"No, I'm asking if you'd like to by my wife! I've been seeing a wonderful therapist. We'll sort through all of the trauma later, I promise!"

"What happened to being friends?!" she climbed back atop the wheel and started to run in the direction Peabody turned in the storm.

"I can come back later if you have to work some things out," FitzRoy shouted over the howling storm.

"No, no, I assure you we're fine!" Peabody called out. "We're always like this! Just like cats and dogs!"

"Would it even count?! I'm Jewish!" called out the cat, nearly toppling off the wheel again.

"Really?! Sherman would love Hanukkah!" Peabody exclaimed. "I need him to be with someone I know who would appreciate him. We'll work out the details later, but for now will you marry me before we make it into the eye of this?!"

"Fine! But we're doing a real ceremony when we get back!" Rigby shouted over the storm.

"You'll need witnesses!" FitzRoy gave shout as he nearly slid off of the deck.

Peabody, who already struggled with the wheel, watched as a set of hands, human hands, on either side took it, and he looked to his left and right, and saw a soaked Sherman and Penny on either side of him. Sherman gave a smile and a nod, and Peabody exchanged this with the boy before the four all made a rough turn to the right, attempting to still veer away from the storm. Water overcame part of the deck, and again FitzRoy started to slip a bit.

"All right then!" FitzRoy struggled to keep his hold. "Do you, Miss—"

"Kim!" Rigby shouted, nearly falling off of the wheel again, only to be gripped by the back of her dress and propped back up by Penny. "And yes!"

"And you, M—"

"Hector! It's Hector!" Rigby shouted.

"And the answer's yes!" Peabody added, reaching out to grab FitzRoy as the man nearly slid away from them.

"All right! No objections!?" FitzRoy called, and Peabody glanced back to his boy.

"Nope!" Sherman shouted with a smile.

"Just get it done with!" Penny demanded.

"All right then—I assume you know the rest?" FitzRoy asked through the rain beating against his face.

Rigby reached out, gripped the dog by his shirt collar, brought his muzzle to hers briefly, and then resumed her run before nearly falling off of the wheel.

The dog in turn, even in spite of the storm, found the time for a brief whistle of surprise.

"I feel like this will be the beginnings of something great, Mrs. Peabody!"

"I'm keeping my maiden name!" the cat snapped. "And I kind of think the same, too!"

"So do I call her mom, Mr. Peabody?!" Sherman asked in a shout.

"I don't know! You'll have to ask your mother!" Peabody answered, bracing himself on the soaking wet deck even more assuredly than before.

"You—SHERMAN!" the shriek came from Rigby, and soon after Peabody, as the boy lost his grip and with one rock of the ship vanished over the side of the Beagle, seemingly into the darkened ocean below. Penny went to rush to him, only to have Peabody pull her back.

"Help!" was the last word they heard before he disappeared.

"I've got this!" Rigby hopped off of the wheel, and Peabody watched in terror as the she ran after the boy. Peabody soon after let go of the wheel, and FitzRoy was quick to catch hold of it, and continued to man it along with Penny.

Peabody, meanwhile, rushed over to the deck, feeling a pit in his stomached as he glanced over, expecting, at the worst, a sea of black, anger, and nothing.

But when he looked down he saw the cat gripping onto Sherman with one arm, and with the other gripping onto the edge of the deck with all of her claws dug into the wood.

Peabody acted too quickly to allow himself to feel relieved—Hurriedly he pulled Sherman up as Rigby started to help the boy up, and then the dog lifted up the cat back onto the side of the ship. The cat clutched onto him for a second, shaking but saying nothing.

"You're all right," Peabody whispered. "You did wonderful."

"I made it?" she asked, her eyes wide and dazed as he gently pulled her off of him.

"Of course. You're a Peabody. We always make it. Sherman! Penny! Come on!" Peabody led them into the arms of Darwin, who stood in the doorway of the passageway and quickly squirrelled then back downstairs.

"You too," Peabody ordered Rigby, whose paw he'd still gripped onto.

"What?!"

"I'll be all right!"

"Then why'd you marry me if you knew you'd be all right?!"

"In case it turns out I'm lying!" he answered.

"Don't you dare make me a widow," she warned as she pushed her forehead to his, before also venturing downstairs after the children and the naturalist.

"Mr. FitzRoy!" Peabody rejoined the captain back out near the wheel, and pointed ahead. "Follow my directions, I believe I know a way out here!"

Rigby finished passing out the towels and blankets to the children, and ran a towel through Sherman's hair. She knelt down as she noticed his expression, and attempted to smile reassuringly as best she could, "…He'll be all right."

"Yeah! Yeah, he will be!" Sherman nodded, sneezing and sniffling. Rigby wasn't sure if she wasn't trying more to convince him… Or herself.

She nestled in between the two on the ground, reaching over and adjusting Penny's blanket on her shoulder. Darwin, meanwhile, paced back and forth, shuddering as he heard a thud from the leaky deck above.

"Probably just hail," Rigby said nervously, flinching as she heard another thud. "Hail got just that big in Ohio, too! Bigger!"

"Yeah… Probably hail," Penny said with a clearing of her throat to the nervous Sherman.

"Yes! That's certainly not out of the question!" Darwin nodded. "They were like this back home in England!"

There was more rustling and crashing from above, with Rigby keeping a paw on either child's shoulder, trying to protect them as much as she could.

And then a calm—The rocking of the boat became more of a bobbing. Darwin occasionally looked out the small porthole, until he squinted, and gave a small, tired smile.

"Sunlight…" sighed the man with relief.

The door leading up to the deck burst open, and one by one, the soaked FitzRoy and Peabody trudged downstairs, the dog finding himself nearly tackled by the boy and the cat.

"I think we've sorted it out! And I think you're both choking me!" the dog said with a laugh and a gasp.

"You know I was thinking about getting married," Darwin said to FitzRoy offhandedly as they watched the group, who was now joined by Penny, who slowly found herself drawn into the hug.

"Do me a favor and don't do it during a storm," FitzRoy replied jokingly, and glanced at Darwin's hands. "What've you got there?"

"Some drawings I found in my room."

"Those are mine…" Rigby answered, having broken her hold from her new husband. "I remember learning to draw from a book with yours in them…"

"I'm afraid I don't draw… But I do like these quite a bit. May I use them?"

"D-Definitely! They're yours!" Rigby replied excitedly, her own tail flicking back and forth in happiness.

"…Wait… If Darwin didn't draw then…" Penny glanced over to Rigby, and Peabody raised an eyebrow as he thought this through for a moment.

"I don't think you learned to draw from Darwin… I think you learned to draw from you," the dog exclaimed with amusement.

"Mr. Peabody! Can I keep him?!" Sherman shouted as he continued to ride atop the back of the slow-moving, puzzled tortoise while Penny videotaped the event.

"Certainly not! We wouldn't have the room!"

"We can always see about a smaller one!" Rigby added, stretching out on the beach next to Peabody. "So, my turn, right? All right… Favorite music."

"Mozart, followed by Beethoven."

"I like Norwegian death punk," that cat answered with an assured nod, and found it impossible to keep a straight face at Peabody's stunned expression. "Kidding! I'm kidding! But I do like some pop. Hopefully that's not too "commoner" for you."

"I can work with that. Most disliked chore."

"Cooking."

"Oh, I can definitely work with that. I would actually prefer if you left the cooking to me."

"I think this'll work," the cat admitted, tilting her head. "Just take time for now, huh?"

"Well, the most difficult part is out of the way," Peabody rose from his spot in the sand and began to dust himself off, and then reached out a paw to Rigby, which she accepted without hesitation. "Sherman! Come on! Time to go!"

"Bye!" Sherman patted the head of the tortoise he'd been riding on, and Penny slid off of her own puzzled tortoise that she'd climbed atop of.

"My parents aren't going to believe any of this," Penny snorted as she climbed into the newly-charged WABAC, that had been repaired, reenergized, and brought onto the shore through a combined effort of Peabody, Darwin, and FitzRoy's crew.

"Thank you again!" Peabody shouted out to the ship, and in the distance Darwin and FitzRoy both waved the group off. "Now, Penny, I know this is excitingly news, but I would be grateful if you didn't tell anyone as of yet."

The blonde girl cringed, and did her best to conceal the phone she'd been typing on, "Umm…. Oops?"

"Penny….." Peabody slapped his forehead and sighed. "So much for that…"

"Guess I'm going to have to get used to people knowing about me… At least a little bit…" Rigby sighed.

"It's okay, you'll have us!" chimed in Sherman. "Mr. Peabody's good at keeping people safe!"

"Yeah… Yeah, he is. Looks like I'll have to get you a birthday gift now, too," Rigby chuckled to herself.

"I think you gave it to him already," Peabody responded quietly to the cat.

Three months later

"Can I look now?"

"Not quite yet," Peabody replied, winking to the awestruck Sherman at his side.

"Is this one of those surprises like, "I'm going to teach you what credit is" or is it more "I fixed your easel"?"

"A little bigger than an easel. All right, now," he removed his hands, keeping them on her shoulders; he wanted to be a part of this. Rigby looked about her bright surrounding, her mouth hanging open. "…You told me I could do whatever I pleased with the building once it was repaired. I thought an art school would be appropriate."

Rigby walked into the entryway of the silent, tiled main floor, looking up with her paws covering her mouth.

"I think she likes it, Mr. Peabody," Sherman chuckled.

"I'd say it's a success," the dog replied casually, watching as she wandered over to a plaque.

"Karen Rigby School of Art and Photography," she read aloud, and the dog only looked back and shrugged, as if he'd done something as simple as carried in the groceries for her.

She spun around to the two and sped to them, taking both in and embrace, purring loudly enough for both to hear.

"I… I have something for you, too… But it's back home," she said quietly to Peabody as they walked out, and the dog raised a single eyebrow.

"Really now…?" Peabody cleared his throat and loosened his bowtie a bit, "…Sherman, why don't you walk ahead a little? We'll catch up to you."

"Nothing like that!" she nudged him on their way out of the tall and newly-painted building. "You'll see."

It was when they returned home that Peabody saw exactly what she was talking about.

"I hope it's good enough," Rigby waited to hear the verdict as she waited to hear Peabody's opinion on the piece—A painting of him and Sherman, who was still a toddler. It was a simple enough scene, similar to a photograph she'd seen. Peabody was spread on the floor, reading a book, while the baby squirming in one of his arms, nibbling a bit on one of his long ears.

"It's excellent," the dog replied, and turned around with a playful smile. "And I think the placement's perfect."

"I'm glad you think so," she stepped closer to him and reached down for his paw, which she took hold of.

"I should start on dinner."

"Maybe we should go out!" Rigby suggested with a gasp, looking away from Peabody as she spoke. "I heard there's a new Chine—Pizza? Pizza place. On 141st—151st! I heard it's got an arcade too."

Peabody spun around, just quickly enough to see the cue cards Sherman had stuck out of his room.

"You're going to spoil him…"

"You didn't? Come on… You built him a time machine. I've gotta outdo that somehow," the cat laughed and patted the dog on the back.

"I think you do things in your own way. And I've grown fond of that," admitted Peabody, who shot a glare at the gagging noise that came from Sherman's room. "You'll be glad you were exposed to an environment like this one day, Sherman!"

"It's nice you got to see him grow up from a baby…" said Rigby thoughtfully, leaning against the dog just a bit. "You know, that got me to thinking it might be nice if down the road—"

"Sherman!" Peabody's voice was frantic as he called out to his son. "Come along! We're going out for pizza!"

"Okay! One second!" the boy shouted, and what followed were a series of crashing noises from his room—He emerged, his hair unstyled and one of his shoes untied, waving a paper in one of his hands.

"What? It'd be like that movie with the little dragon-donkey mutants," Rigby joked quietly to the dog.

"I thought you didn't watch movies."

"My stepson's been catching me up to the outside world."

"I'm absolutely not doing diaper duty anymore. Or a litter box. Or newspaper—Sherman took long enough with that method."

"You're also not driving my car," she replied, taking the keys he had started to reach for.

"The last crash worked out well enough for you. I'd say it was a smashing success," Peabody chuckled to himself, and Rigby gave a groan.

"You're lucky I'm… Fond of you, Hector…" Rigby muttered.

"And I'm quite fond of you, Kim. Sherman, are you all ready?"

"Yup!" Peabody noticed, as the boy ran towards them, that he'd added his own picture to the wall. Although crudely drawn in colored pencils, Peabody could still make out the white dog, black and white cat, and the redheaded boy in the center.

The genius, the dog—Mr. Peabody—Walked into the elevator of his home with his family in tow, making sure the shut the lights off and look back and the picture one last time on the way out.

The end

AUTHOR'S NOTES

-My real identity: in reality I've been a member of the online fanfiction community for nearly fourteen years. I thought this project was a little different than anything I'd done before, and I wanted the freedom of anonymity when working on it. If actually started as a joke between some friends that I'd write it… Anddd then I did. And loved it. I might work in the future with this pen name, too!

Chapter 1:

-Louis Wain: Wain was an artist famous for his drawings of anthropomorphic cats, which later and later got more psychedelic in style due to worsening mental illness. Fun stuff. This author's been trying to get some signed Wain postcards in her art collection for some time now ; )

-Rigby: Okay, I'm a fan of "Regular Show" I'll admit, but I was thinking more along the lines of "Eleanor Rigby" since, like the lady in the song, Rigby is a bit of the lonely sort (not that she minds it!).

-Rigby's description: based off of an outdoor feral I looked after who passed away earlier this year, down to the eyes. I thought it'd be a way to honor him.

-The restaurant Rigby thinks Peabody works at: If you Google map it, it's a Dunkin Donuts.

-The curious lack of pronouns: If you read back, you'll see that for several chapters there just aren't any pronouns to identify Rigby's gender. This is in part I wanted to make it a bit of a surprise when she was revealed to be "Kim" and partly because I wanted her place in Sherman's mind to shift from "guy friend" to "potential game changer" and for him to maybe see her as a little bit of a threat to his and Mr. Peabody's relationship.

-Jackson Pollock: An artist known for really abstract, large paintings. I drew inspiration for Rigby with Pollock's method of painting to juxtapose with the methodical Peabody. Perhaps more on this later.

-The Little and Seville: Yes this is a nod to both Stuart Little and Alvin and the Chipmunks in the same chapter as these fancy art references.

-Rigby not liking sweets: Cats can't taste sweet. I know, saddens me, too.

-Pavlov and the bell: Pavlov's dog. Considering a dog was used as a guinea pig for this experiment, this is why Peabody seems to react poorly to this joke.

Chapter 2:

-You gave me fleas!: Cats are usually cast in stories as finicky and clean freaks. I sort of wanted to "turn the tables" given Peabody's somewhat neurotic nature. For the record, yes, it was Rigby's fault.

-Snoopy: I couldn't resist.

Chapter 3:

-Mach 2 of the WABAC: Based more on the original machine, which was more of a door, complete with a welcome mat. I like to think Peabody made a standby after the incidents of the movie.

-Paris August of 1911: It was actually through the dumb luck of research I learned the story about the Mona Lisa being stolen! It was stolen by an Italian national who wanted it to return to its home country. And yes, indeed, it took a DAY before anyone noticed its missing.

-The Rangers: Well, they're a New York team, I figured Peabody would be a fan.

-Kimberly: I went with one of the most feminine names I could think of, something that purposefully WOULDN'T suit Rigby and cause her to want to use her surname more often.

-The coincidence conversation: No notes here, but that was a pain to write. I kept second-guessing myself the entire time!

Chapter 4:

-Freud: In all reality, Freud is probably the LAST person Peabody would go to in these situations; nearly every theory Freud ever put forth has been discredited by major educators and authorities. But I thought the character was well-known enough to make for some funny imagery.

-Jung: A psychiatrist whom Freud was once best friends with but ultimately had a terrible falling out with.

-Skinner and his box: B.F. Skinner was a controversial behavioral psychologist who invented what's known as an "operant conditioning chamber" or "Skinner box". Basically it was a box used in training an animal to provide a desired response based upon a signal.

-Brazil: A major song is "Aquarela do Brasil" in the film's soundtrack. What better than to have a setting in Brazil!? I figured if it was Peabody's theme that he'd have some sort of affinity to the place. Casino da Urca has actually been featured, albeit briefly, in the 1943 film "Saludos Amigos" which features the character… José "Joe" Carioca.

-Tango: The song I had in mind for this dance number was "A Evaristo Carriego" which, unfortunately, wasn't written until 1969. Oh, well, I can dream.

Chapter 5:

-Shootout at the O.K. Corral: It last only thirty seconds, and we still don't know WHAT caused it. I think it was just really warm out and everyone got a little agitated that day.

-Colorblind: Google how a cat sees the world if you happen to get the time. It's really pretty interesting. Now imagine seeing the Sistine Chapel, of all things, before and after. It was like a new world opening up to Rigby, to whom color and art are so important. Hence a better title was born!

Chapter 6:

-Goemon Ishikawa: my first published fanfiction (under the pen name "J. Lucy-Daisuke) was for the "Lupin III" series. This included a relative of Goemon Ishikawa, Goemon Ishikawa XIII. This, combined with the fact that Goemon was also close with his son, as Peabody is to Sherman, made him a fine candidate to make a cameo. Legend has it that Goemon was executed for being a thief in either a vat of oil or water, and his held his son over his head to keep the boy out of harm's way (in some versions the boy survives this).

Chapter 7:

-How much do you weigh?: While Maine coons are usually long-haired and I saw Rigby as short-haired, they're the largest breed of cat out there, and I thought this would give her less of a height different to Peabody. She still is a bit on the chubby side for a female Maine coon, though.

-The explosion: I'm not sure if this would actually set off an explosion, but I don't have any evidence of the contrary (please, NO one attempt to prove me right or wrong)

Chapter 8:

-Eating cat food: Honestly this just made me giggle, so it was kept in.

-Sainted: It was a young Mother Theresa he was referring to. The more you know…

-Hector: I've been watching this cartoon since the Regan administration and NEVER knew he had a first name. But apparently according to a cartoon shot for U.S. bonds this is his first name. I do rather like the name, though! I thought Rigby could use this for more special occasions (sort of like how Sherman refers to Peabody as "dad"). It seemed to have more impact that way.

-I have a boyfriend!: Senior year prom was a rough one for me.

Chapter 9:

-Ted. What a jerk, amirite? Really though, no real notes for this.

Chapter 10

-The Galapagos lizards: Darwin indeed DID think they were spooky.

-The ex-boyfriend: It's Top Cat. That's canon now.

-nigh: hey, a typo! Some editor I am.

Chapter 11

-Darwin and marriage: Darwin, after his journey, struggled to figure out if he wanted to get married, even making a pros/cons list. He decided on the pros and got married (yay)… to his first cousin (eep…).


End file.
